U of M Agronomy Alum Update: Matt Pfarr
Good day and welcome to the University of Minnesota Extension, University of Minnesota podcast, Minnesota CropCast. I'm your host Dave Nicolai, I'm a University of Minnesota Extension educator in field crops and I'm here again today with my co host Doctor. Seth Nave. Seth is Extension Soybean Specialist here at the University of Minnesota. And Seth we have the hometown hero so to speak of our alumni that is here with us today.
Speaker 1:One of your former graduate students Matt Farr originally from Southern Minnesota. Matt is a past graduate as I indicated from the University of Minnesota, a grad student here. Matt is presently field solutions manager with Larman. Stop. I say Matt is field solutions manager for a company called Lallemann, is actually a company that I believe is based outside of The United States.
Speaker 1:And Matt is here to tell us a little bit more about that and what he does for the company in terms of inputs in not only in the agriculture side but on the horticulture side relating to different products, biologicals, etc. So before we get into the details here into the woods, Matt, maybe you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and how you ended up here going to school at the University of Minnesota, and what you've been doing since then.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you, Dave, for the warm welcome. Seth, thank you. Hello to everyone in CropCast land. It's really a pleasure to be with you here today.
Speaker 2:So again, Matt Farr. I'm from LeSour, Minnesota. So it's kind of auspicious roots if you're gonna work in agriculture. Not many people have heard of the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, but a lot of people have heard of Green Giant. And so long ago, they had bred kind of a mutant variety of sweet peas, and they were huge, but they were very flavorful, and they thought, how do we get people to eat these giant peas?
Speaker 2:They're used to the little wrinkly, dinky ones, you know, and they call them green giant peas. So little fact to start off with, that's that's where I'm from, and, of course, have dabbled in canning crops over the years. So I come from I think my father and mother are both sixth generation farmers on their respective sides, so it was a good good marriage. I heard recently you find your girlfriend in the phone book and your wife in the Plat book, so they figured it out, brought together two good farming families, the Riley Pony Farm and the Far Farm, and you know, it makes me seventh generation there. So corn and beans primarily, they're finishing a thousand head of market hogs there on the farm.
Speaker 2:So I grew up, knew how to work. Definitely being a child born in the early nineties, I remember pulling weeds before Roundup Ready was introduced in our in our soybeans there. And so I've seen kind of farming change quite a bit, become a lot more technology mechanized, etcetera. So at first, when I left the farm, after high school, I didn't really realize I wanted to be working in agriculture. I went to St.
Speaker 2:John's University, the one in Minnesota, right, in Central Minnesota there, and, was a pre med student. So biology, chemistry were always sort of my areas of focus and interest, so those were my major courses of study. I certainly had the grades probably to get into med school, but I found myself in a couple summer internships more daydreaming about the farm. And I often think about that when I ask people, What's your passion? You know, when you're driving alone in your vehicle and you got all that time on your hands, what are you thinking about?
Speaker 2:And so I was actually thinking about dad and grandpa and my brothers on the farm, thinking about maybe the sports activities that were going on. We can get into that in a little bit later, but it was just a fun place to grow up, and so I thought I needed a career that would connect me with that. And so I had met Seth Nave at a Hale Talk, Seth, if you recall that one, all those years ago, and I think it was a Thursday night. I had been home for a league softball game. I remember it was old in my childhood bedroom upstairs, and the hail woke me up around two, three in the morning, so two days later we had to have the hail talk, and you told good corn and soybean growers of Sibley County where the risks were at the developmental stage, and a lot of the crop was sadly hailed out that year.
Speaker 2:So what became, what started out as maybe a challenging beginning was really a great opportunity. When I, after my undergrad wrapped up, I was working in medical testing for a year or two. I applied and was accepted to interview at Minnesota, and I remember I had a full slate of people interviewing. And Seth was actually not on that list, but I saw him in the back of the room there, at school that day, and I asked him for, time over lunch or something. I think we fitted in and, was able to interview, and I really liked his focus on production, agronomics, you know, working with soybean.
Speaker 2:It was definitely something that it can be a challenging crop in the rotation at times. It just means that there's a lot to to take care of and work for on that crop. So that's how I jumped in at the university, and it's probably a family sort of tradition, because now that my dad was a gopher, all of my siblings, I'm the oldest of four, all went to this school. My two younger brothers wrestled for the gophers, so it's become, you know, a family school as well. So I guess it wouldn't have been a complete educational journey for me without coming through the school.
Speaker 2:I should also mention that my father was an extension agent with the university for at least a decade, so they have a lot of ties back to this school, and I thought it was a natural fit. And Seth, thanks for taking the chance on me. It was a great opportunity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we just need to make sure that your kids come to school here, and then we can make sure that we tie this together. We were down on enrollment just a little bit, so we need to work on future enrollment. So I'm glad you're supporting the demographics here by having a couple kids, and we just got to make sure you hang around and can send them here to the Twin Cities.
Speaker 1:Well, tell us a little bit about what it was like to be a graduate student. Now she's prefaced this and say, Seth just wasn't a a teacher that came in and out. But as an adviser in graduate school and so forth, there's this different relationship, isn't there, in terms of that? And you're not only just your class load and pick up there, but your your project work and and so forth. What's it like?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So, you know, that was probably the reason I didn't go right to the university as an undergrad as I was that shy farm kid, Dave. You triggered me a little bit there, but I think my the mistake was I didn't come and do too much touring on the St. Paul campus. I remember my mother took me to Minneapolis campus, and I was there ten in the morning, and it was class change, and then all of a sudden you're in a sea of thousands and thousands of students, and you're, like, looking around.
Speaker 2:I'm just like, Get me out of here. I want to go back to Sibley County. So it was interesting. So maybe if the it would have been a little different from the beginning, you know, you never know where it goes. But as we kind of came full circle there, we came back and came to the university and had that opportunity to meet with Seth.
Speaker 2:And honestly, I've always had a lot of respect for the University of Minnesota Extension program and all of our neighboring states, and it's how they relate to farmers and how they get their message across, right? So I think what Seth had impressed upon me in that Hale Talk was you know, taking that farmer kind of in your heart and knowing what they value, and I know that comes from Seth's upbringing in Northern Iowa on a farm, and his brother's still working there, and that's the sort of service you can provide. So I knew if I was gonna combine sort of my technical skills and that biology and chemistry that I was being trained in with more applied agronomy, that was a good way to match that up. And so yeah, Seth was a professor that came in and out. He's been, of course, a key mentor for me and someone I've kept in touch with these last eight years.
Speaker 2:As as you've mentioned, I work for Lullman PlanCare.
Speaker 3:Well So let's let's not talk about Seth anymore.
Speaker 2:So how about
Speaker 3:I I think we can
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 3:think I'd like to talk just a couple minutes about your brother and sister? I think it's a nice story. I don't we don't wanna overwhelm this you know, we're interviewing you, of course. So it's it's not about your family. We definitely don't wanna talk about your father.
Speaker 3:So but let's let's spend a a minute just talking about your brother and sister and what they did here at the university and where they're at now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So a lot to unpack there. So we'll go in birth order, right? So I'm the oldest of four kids that Dave and Robin Farr raised there on the Riley Pony Farm in Sibley County. So if we go to my sister Erin, she was always outside with us, but she had her own little sandbox, that was flower garden.
Speaker 2:So she had a fun time with mom picking out her annuals and perennial plants and tending to that garden, so she was always somewhat more of a horticulturalist, you could say, while we were out in the fields. And she she parlayed that into a really nice undergraduate career here at the university, and so she did some plant breeding. I don't recall exactly what undergrad degree she left with, but she took advantage of working for like the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, of course, the Horticultural Research Center here in Chanhassen. She really made a lot of her experience and did some undergraduate research. So then she was able to go to Rutgers after this, and she has her PhD now.
Speaker 2:She's actually back at the University of Minnesota working in the oat breeding program, getting her postdoc there. So fantastic for her, and of course, she was the first member of the family to get a PhD, so she can kind of hang that over the rest of us. And then my two younger brothers, they're very close in birth order. My middle brother there, Brett, he turns 30 on Sunday, so anyone that knows Brett, you know, wish him a happy birthday when this comes out. He came to the university.
Speaker 2:He was a highly recruited high school wrestling prospect, and at that time Jay Robinson was the head coach, so he got the pleasure of having both Jay and Brandon Egham, the current head coach, in his tenure, and he was an outstanding wrestler. My brother Chris followed him to this school, had a nice career as well, was an NCAA qualifier, And so those two, being Irish twins, they like to do everything together, and so they got a chance to do a food and agribusiness major here at CFANS, and they were the first graduating class back in like 2013. So they a little bit of history there too that they share that same same date ear is on their their grad certificate. So but yeah, they're they definitely took full advantage of the career here as well. So
Speaker 1:Not to rehash your thesis, but what did you do when you were here in graduate school and so forth besides, you know, obviously visiting with Seth Nave? But I mean, what were some of the things and projects and so forth that you were involved with and Maybe go back a little bit in your own thesis work. Absolutely. So
Speaker 2:this, it always comes back to solving issues for growers and taking them in your heart. So in this case, we have segregation, if you will, of soybeans produced in the Upper Midwest that travel west by rail to the ports of Washington, and then stuff more in the heart of the belt, comes down the Mississippi River, right? So when buyers, let's say in China, look at our soybeans, they can actually kinda buy from the different growing regions, and they have noticed over time there's maybe a touch more total protein, in those beans from the more southern states. And so our research was kind of peeling that apart and saying, okay, well, protein's made up of these things called amino acids. What are the amino acids that are maybe more enriched in these northern soybeans that might actually set them apart being more valuable to the nutritionist that's that's using those soybeans to create a diet for some sort of monogastric, like a pig or chicken on feed, for meat production.
Speaker 2:So we were able to identify some trends there and I continued the work of Mr. Rob Proub who was a SESS student before me, and I think we identified some interesting trends that we documented and were able to publish in the Agronomy Journal. We also did a little bit of look on, okay, if there's a little bit less total protein, but even if that protein's more enriched in our northern soybeans, there's probably some more sucrose and other sugars in there. So as we build out our sugars, we actually end up getting some undigestible ones called the raffinose family of oligosaccharides. Seth, I hope you're proud on how much I'm remembering So
Speaker 3:good. So good. So proud.
Speaker 2:And so those are the things that if you eat beans and they've got a lot of RFOs, those oligosaccharides, they make you kinda gassy, right? So that's what beans are known for. So we actually looked at that and showed that we have less of those as well, those nondigestibles. So long story short, to anyone listening that's a buyer in the markets, make sure to support those beans grown in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, hey, even into Manitoba there in Canada, right? Like those are really good beans.
Speaker 2:Buy lots of them, the animals will love them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're still using your data, and I repeat it all the time. We're I'm on the road. I'm headed to Asia in in a week, so we'll we'll be showing some of your figures over there to help support exports from the PNW. So that, I guess, I don't know how much more as a graduate student you could really ask for. You got a nice publication.
Speaker 3:And I think more so it's the long impact of it that has real impact on farmers because I know you appreciate, you know, farmers and have that connection and wanna help farmers in Minnesota.
Speaker 1:Well, know, they say all good things come to an end and eventually that happened to you in graduate school. At some point, you stopped. And then you said, what's next? So tell us what happened next.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So it was sort of another chance where it's about the network that you have as a professional and our old commercial director, now our executive director Vince Meierly, had known Seth from some of the ag education field days he puts on. And at that time, this would have been maybe winter of twenty fifteen, Vince was actually in Hawaii with one of our current distributors, and that time they would bring some of their manufacturers and better customers to Hawaii, and Seth had the family there at the same time. And so I don't know exactly what happened that day, Seth, but I think you guys turned a corner and you're like, Hey, I know you, and got to talking about what was going on. And Vince was saying, Hey, we're starting more of a broad acre focus within this company, Lolleman Plant Care, and I need some young agronomy help, you know, someone who knows agriculture, has some experience here, is willing to get their hands dirty, and, that's where my name came up.
Speaker 2:So I appreciate that, Seth. I didn't really have to do a lot of searching. Vince came right here to to Hayes Hall on campus at Minnesota and St. Paul here, and we had a couple interviews, and went well enough that they made me an offer to to join that team. And so, it was eight years ago now, and it's been a really good run.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of roles within this company that have that have really helped me develop. And and honestly, I've seen more of the God's green earth here with Lallem and Plank here than I ever thought I would, and and that's really fantastic. Right? So we're talking agriculture in Europe, in South America, in the Pampas Of Brazil, the Western Prairies Of Canada, you know, the Western Prairies Of The US, the Pacific Northwest, and the Palouse Region there. So it's really been a fantastic experience to get a look at a wide range of climates, of crops.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, it's always the people that make a business really special.
Speaker 3:So I think it's interesting, Lalamand, as a company, and I think from your perspective, you joined them at a time it was almost like joining a startup because they were starting a whole new line of business. But yet, on the other side of it, they weren't a small new startup company. They're a large existing company. So maybe you could give us a little background on what is at large and and what, what your division is working on specifically.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So Lallemand started in the late eighteen hundreds in Montreal. And so a gentleman from the Alsace Lorraine region of Europe, so we're talking that contested sliver between France and Germany, his name was Fred Schuhrer, he immigrated. I think he was sick of the conflicts over there, and he came to Montreal, which is in Quebec, province of Canada, and, he set up shop there as an industrious fellow. And would you believe it?
Speaker 2:The Quebecor French Canadian said, we don't want to pronounce your German name. We're gonna call you Fred Lallemaugh, which means Fred the German. So he legally changed his name. He had a couple of different businesses going, and then in 1923, which makes it a hundred years of microbial production, he started fermenting yeast mostly for the bread baking industry. And so that company has since grown.
Speaker 2:It's changed a family ownership. It's now owned by the Shanyon family. We're in our third generation of leadership there, and we have 12 divisions. So, you know, we have maybe the best of both worlds, Seth, to your question. We have an established business where we're kind of in leadership in some of our divisions, and then in the plant care division, that startup mentality.
Speaker 2:But I would also say that having done some training again recently within the company as a manager, that sort of attitude is pretty pervasive of being thrifty, of looking for opportunities, of being efficient. That's really what's made Lalamonde unique. And so they where we excel as a company is in the production of yeast, bacteria, fungi, their derivatives, right? So we're like a small research, big development company. You know, we need to work with good people in university and other research.
Speaker 2:We will take their ideas. We will develop them in our 50 or so production facilities to reach scale, which is sometimes easier said than done, depending on the microorganism of interest, and then we will follow that through the marketing, all the way through the value chain to the end user. And so Lalaman's been super successful at creating little niches where, you know, there's there's a lot of value in terms of differentiation, expertise. I'm thinking of businesses like our wine wine business Nanology, where we're in seven out of 10 bottles of wine globally, 50% of champagnes, specialty meat and cheese cultures. I'm kinda thinking about happy hour here as it's getting later in the day, right?
Speaker 2:But those are sort of the some of the niches where we've been very successful.
Speaker 1:Well, it's for sure it's not your when we think about biologicals and agronomy and so forth, we've probably a little bit different because, you know we're thinking about corn and soybeans and in situation but your firm is into plant protection, bio fertilization, plant stress reduction. I can read it right off your product guide that you brought along here. But the bottom line it's horticulture as well as agronomics in here. You're kind of the bridge in between, so to speak. You're a foot in each camp, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So my role as field solutions manager is really to help the commercial team support the current business, but also make a nice path for us one to two years into the future. And it certainly has involved expanding my knowledge of different crops and cropping systems, as I alluded to. And it's there's really just endless possibilities right now. You know, as a seventh generation farmer as we established, I know the pain points that farms experience, and I wanna be cognizant of that, that we're bringing value, you know, with our products.
Speaker 2:You know, we're a tool in the toolbox that we're trying to be additive. I think we've gone through some interesting agricultural revolutions in the last few generations, right? I think, of course, Norman Borlaug, the Green Revolution, we had we've really started to optimize our plant breeding techniques. That's getting better all the time with the computational advancements. And now we have great planter technology prescriptive and fertility and other crop management.
Speaker 2:So that's really exciting. And so then we look and say, is some of that, not necessarily tapped out because there's a steady growth rate of improvement, especially from genetic breeding, But what's next? Is there another way we can get to this hurdle? And it says it right in the product guide that you mentioned, Dave, that our vision is just like everyone else who's serious in agriculture, that by 02/1950, we need to feed 10,000,000,000 souls on this planet and feed them in a nutritional and healthful way. So that's where we're trying to fit in.
Speaker 2:And I would say, broadly, that would be our mission statement.
Speaker 3:You're not alone in this marketplace, though, are you?
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of competition, which I think is healthy. And anytime you have a young market that has had some success and is growing at a 30% annual rate, people are gonna see that as a place to put capital, right? And so where I would differentiate Lollamont, again, being family owned, is we are very strategic, and we know how to thrive in this business and ultimately be quality producers, which for a microscopic organism, it's all about trust, and it's about finding that company that can provide that. So we can sort of differentiate. We have the hundred year history.
Speaker 2:You know, I hope we're thriving in the same way in another hundred years. And so, you know, the the marketplace is gonna thin down. I think a lot of the the players in it right now will will eventually merge together or disappear, but we plan to, of course, offer that value and differentiate and make sure that that growers are benefiting from our products.
Speaker 3:You know, I guess I want to take the opportunity just to state that we're not playing favorites here or anything like that. I just, you know, we invited Matt here to talk as an alumnist, but about biologicals in general, because is really, this is really on the radar screen of farmers and the local retailers. It's regional distributors, all the big companies are talking about biologicals. And so it is the technology that everybody's talking about. And there's a lot of interest in it.
Speaker 3:And I really like the Lollamand story because I think you really bring that history and that production of the organisms, especially and knowledge of them, you know, that I can really appreciate. There's going to be a lot of, you know, it's big in the marketplace for a lot of good reasons. And I think it's important to remember that these things offer a lot of promise for us. So I'm really excited about the future of biologicals. And I think there's an opportunity for producers.
Speaker 3:So what kind of activity or what's the space? I think maybe to back up, we can say that just to remind people that one of the oldest biologicals that we've been supplying for farmers is the rhizobium inoculants that we've been selling to farmers. And it goes back to just even the Urbana, you know, inoculants that were basically just soil, right, that we were digging out of fields and spreading around. And so, you know, maybe walk us through a little bit of of how some of these things how how some things have changed and how's maybe some of the biologicals maybe are are not that different from what we were doing, you know, fifty years ago.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So and I'd love to make more connections, and that's what I often do with our our customers is to to introduce them to the ways they're already using a microbial mediated product every day, and one that comes to mind is ethanol. You know, we we use yeast to make all those those different alcohols, and, that's one thing that Lalaman's a part of 50% of ethanol production in The US. So as a corn grower, I very much appreciate another local consumption point demanding that that that grain and differentiating the offer. So, yeah, if we wanna go back, maybe more than a hundred years in terms of rhizobia production, these are microorganisms that symbiotically fix nitrogen for a family of plants called legumes.
Speaker 2:There's a great company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that that was started called Nitrogen, and I think, we've had these discussions where their original advertisements are are interesting because on this this old advertisement you've got as a cartoon layout, it's like you see maybe 20 trucks, trolleys driving down the road full of soil, and it's it's an advertisement by Nitrogen saying you could get the same amount of Rhizobia in 20 trucks worth of soil as you can in one packet you can hold in your hand of our our peat base. So for those that are are following along at home, you know, soybeans are not a native crop or they're not a native plant species. You know, they were domesticated in Eastern Coastal China. There's theories around, you know, they they evolved a little bit of this mechanism to to associate with the the bacteria, which would then, you know, help them fix the nitrogen from the atmosphere because sand and and coastal areas tend to be nitrogen deficient. And so they had a competitive advantage, and they proliferated that.
Speaker 2:When The US Farmer, let's say, or the Canadian farmer as well, they brought soybeans to North America, they were looking at it as food stock. They think they'd cut the whole plant, right, and as a forage for cows. And, that was that was a good start for them. It didn't grow very well at first till they started bringing soil. I think they brought soil to the first point of, it was state of North Carolina, and they realized that then they got effective nodulation, which are the little structures, little warts, they're red inside from the hemoglobin like molecule and that you find on legume plant roots.
Speaker 2:One thing that was interesting is I think they brought soybean cyst nematode to North Carolina at the same time. You know, you do some good, you do some bad.
Speaker 3:Probably some lady beetles and some other things along with it. It's, you know, the biologicals and biological control historically has a there's a bit of a checkered past. But I don't think you wanna imply that you're bringing in any stuff in your any of your products. Right?
Speaker 2:Your your words, not mine. The QA team might be cringing a little bit right now, but no, it's we we obviously take our quality very seriously on our products. And I think we go back to that history, and I think you wanted me to bring it forward a little bit, Seth, in TimePoint. So if you start there, you think about what substrates are really good for these Rhizobia. Well, they're right at home in the soil, and they don't they're always vegetative, meaning they don't farm spores like some of our other bacterial friends.
Speaker 2:So gotta keep them from drying out. You gotta keep them at a friendly room temperature or below just like soil.
Speaker 1:So how do you think your classical education and your training here, University of Minnesota, we're going to use that lump side and situation, how has that helped you in your position as manager? In other words, if you're going to be looking at a potential product, how do you analyze and say well you know where's the replicated data? You know what tests have been run? How do you know whether or not it does what it say it's going to do? And if you look at look at the information you know say for example it's a whether it's you develop yourself or another supplier.
Speaker 1:What are some of the skill sets that you're able to bring to bed in terms of actually you know understanding whether or not this is going to be actually legit and, help producers here in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:So I I completely agree with the nature of the question. Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. So we look across the market, and, we've brought some new technology to the market in terms of granular inoculants. So those places where rhizobia survive well would be like peat, granules, and even the liquid seed treatments. But having a classical statistical education, knowing about randomized complete blocks, all the things that, you know, as a grad student, you know, you think are are sort of your vegetables along with the meat and potatoes and the fun of being out in the field, is really what's been most applicable, and I'm very proud of, at Lalman Plant Care, we've we've been running now hundreds of site years in any summer, and I bring that sort of urgency, you know, because I remember back in the day how well prepared Seth's lab was.
Speaker 2:We had excellent lab technicians like Dimitri and Victor that we'd spend days and weeks just color coding for every site, the seed. We'd we'd get it all treated up ahead of time so that when, you know, Seth was running the planter, it was, it was plug and play. Right? So, like, we we made the most of that springtime, and that relates back to even being a farm kid. You know that every minute in the spring is valuable, and it tends to go really quick, and it's a lot more fun if you're prepared ahead of time, whether that's greasing a gauge wheel or setting your treatments in order.
Speaker 2:So yeah, would say that the university definitely honed that in. I know Seth was being honest. He said he would probably say you put a little more sense of urgency into my step back in that day, but it's been an ongoing process and it's got us to where we are. And so, if we can stand, in front of a room of people in the egg industry and talk about where gonna get value from a bacterial product or a fungal product and say, this is something that, you know, we've tried. Here are the trials.
Speaker 2:Here's a p value that would be associated with this and making sure that we're speaking from statistical certainty.
Speaker 3:So right now, your products from your company you're selling to farmers, You know, you're promising some yield increases. What, you know, what's the next? Without, you know, what's the next frontier? What are you hoping for? Maybe not even what's in the pipeline now, but what you hope for in maybe ten years for farmers from biologicals.
Speaker 3:Where's the sky on this thing? What's the upper limit on what biologicals might end up doing for farmers in the in the distant future?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So I I've been having these discussions recently, and I'm actually kind of sad. My my father has probably closed the checkbook on investing in planner technology because we just upgraded that again. And, you know, I mentioned that earlier, but it's it's evenness of planting, evenness of downforce and pressure prescriptive as we go across the field. We can even switch out different hybrids and genetics.
Speaker 2:So take that concept of multiple, let's say, corn hybrids on the same planter, and you're planting the more defensive one on the sandy degraded hill slopes, the more offensive one in the clay bottom where you've got water. Now think about a system that delivers biologicals on demand, and now we're talking granules, liquids. This isn't science fiction. There are companies out there right now with these sorts of technologies. So that's what it's gonna take because that's where, a great a good technology or promising technology in theory becomes a great technology that returns ROI.
Speaker 2:It's actually on the application. You know, you need a great company like Lalamon to to ferment the technology and give you a quality product. And, again, we don't have a monopoly on that space by any means, but, it's the application because we talked about that that spring kind of moment. You know? You have that one chance to do it right.
Speaker 2:You really have to have a nice ROI to to plug into what the farmer's gotta get done.
Speaker 3:I mean, you're you're right after my heart. I think you're, maybe too good of a student. I think you're you know, we're right out of the same hymnal here. You know, it's almost, you know, there's another company that used to say something about the right product and the right acre, right? And I think when we get to that point, I totally agree that when we're at that point, that's the real win for farmers, when we can when we can really get out there and provide the right thing in the right spot.
Speaker 3:And that's where their ROIs really come through. And, you know, the companies are going to charge more when they're able to prove that they can give you a real give the farmer a real value. That ends up being more expensive than the things that we just spread out on every acre everywhere, because it's, you know, the farmer has tougher time showing the ROI. But I think from, whether it's an IPM perspective or whether it's just in an agronomic perspective, once we get to that point, I think that will be the right that's that's kind of the top that I see is is the future as well. So I think using the technologies that you're talking about in addition to the biological technologies, variety, biologicals, and those kind of things, I think that's that's awesome future for farmers.
Speaker 1:Well, at this point, any last words, Matt, before we close it out?
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. So I've got a couple of presents that I brought along here for Dave and Seth. So what I'm handing them right now is is Crown Royal whiskey, just a little bottle for each of them. This is this is a product that's made with Lalaman yeast in Gimli, Manitoba.
Speaker 2:Right? So it's a Canadian blended whiskey, and so it's just another one of those friendly Lalaman business units. If anyone at home enjoys a good Scotch single malt, I think our our presence in Scotland is is quite heavy as well. So I think we're partnered with Diageo, which is behind a lot of our favorite brands of spirits, global holding company. And, just thought I'd bring you guys a little maybe a taste of, you know, what Lollamont has to offer there in the, LBI.
Speaker 3:This is a good note for any anybody who wants would like to be on the podcast in the future is that the hosts really welcome the gifts. I didn't know that we appreciated it so much until one shows up, but now now we know how much we appreciate a gift from one of our guests.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much, Matt. And I think you really helped to bring what I call a science based approach to biologicals, which sometimes is missing in this particular industry. So we appreciate you know putting those things together you know the word science and biologicals in terms of the products and you know the efficacy and the things which you wanted to do. So thank you again for stopping by we appreciate that. So this has been Matt Farr and he is the field solutions manager for Lalleman Plant Care and thanks again for coming by.
Speaker 1:This is Dave Nicolai with University Minnesota Extension Educator in Field Crops along with my co host Doctor. Seth Nave, University Minnesota Extension soybean specialist and thank you for attending and we'll talk to you next time.
