Welcome to this Wednesday edition of RealAg Radio, live from the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Idaho! Host Shaun Haney broadcasts today's show from the AGI booth! For the conversation today, hear from Jason Jones, Kent Woods, Brent "Woody" Woodcock, Kushal Dave, and Jake Neujahr.
00:00 - Coming Up...
01:36 - Jason Jones & Kent Woods discuss ease of maintenance and capacity
13:25 - Jason Jones & Kent Woods answer the question, "how much more capacity can we add?"
26:41 - Intro to the panel: Brent "Woody" Woodcock, Kushal Dave, and Jake Neujahr
33:24 - Brent "Woody" Woodcock, Kushal Dave, and Jake Neujahr discuss AGI product development
47:36 - Brent "Woody" Woodcock, Kushal Dave, and Jake Neujahr
Thoughts on something we talked about on the show? Connect with host Shaun Haney at shaney@realagriculture.com, on X/Twitter by using the hashtag #RealAgRadio, or give us a shout on the response line, 1-855-776-6147.
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Welcome to Agronomic Monday with your host Lyndsey Smith! Today on the show, Lyndsey is joined by Gabrielle Croft of DEKALB for a spotlight interview, Saskatchewan farmer Dusty Hunter on crop residue benefits, Katie Meggison of Maizex on tailoring your seed choice for more beans in the bin, Dennis Penningron of Michigan State University on...
Read more » Today on RealAg Radio on Rural Radio 143, we are on location in Boone, Iowa at the Farm Progress Show. I'm really looking forward to this one. We are going to be with AGI, our show sponsor for today, and we've got some senior executives. We've also got some engineers. And one of the things that AGI has really been trying to do is, is focus on that customer feedback loop, trying to speed up the process of innovation. We got lots of heat. There's quite a bit of humidity as well. But we've got a great show for you here today with a great lineup of From the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa.
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It's time for RealAg Radio on Rural Radio, channel 143 on SiriusXM. RealAg Radio and RealAgriculture.com are your home for insight and analysis of the issues that are impacting your farm business. Let's get real and get connected with RealAg Radio. Welcome to RealAg Radio here on Rural Radio 143 SiriusXM. Shaun Haney, your host here on this Wednesday edition of the show, and we are on location at the Farm Progress Show here in Boone, Iowa. It is a little hot, a little sweaty, a little bit of a nice light breeze rolling through the AGI booth. We are on location here today with AGI. We're going to be talking about some of the product development and some of the things that are happening in the world of agriculture. Looking forward to it. If you do have any feedback on today's show, you can send me an email, shaney@realagriculture.com. You can also call or text the RealAg feedback line, 855-776-6147. Well, let's get to it here. We got 2 guests to start off the show. We're joined by Jason— Jason Jones, sorry, who is Senior Director of US Farm Sales. Hey Jason, how's it going?
It's going fantastic.
You enjoying the show?
Absolutely.
Yeah, been pretty decent crowds here. Everyone's a little just trying to find some shade.
Yeah, on a hot day like this, people are— that's, you know, it's nice having the tents that we do, a couple of buildings, and it still gives us a good opportunity to bring people in and get them out of the shade or get them into the shade and talk to them about all the wonderful things we have here.
Yeah, there's lots of awesome stuff happening at AGI. Also joining us is Kent Woods. He is head of North America Product Management in the R&D. How are we doing today, Kent?
Very good.
Are you enjoying the show?
I am enjoying the show. It's, uh, it's been a lot of good conversations right off the bat, and that's why we're here.
Uh, how many times have you been to Farm Progress?
Oh, through the 30 years I've been in the ag industry, or just with AGI?
Uh, numerous times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There, there definitely is a, you know, having an outdoor show is a little bit different. Like, we have lots of shows in agriculture where we are inside tends to be during the cold time of the season, but it is kind of nice to get outside in the elements here. It kind of feels a little bit more connected to the grower.
Yeah, exactly. I think all the shows that we do, right, it's nice to get out here. You get the farmers coming in for conversations. From my standpoint, that's what I'm looking for, is to have good conversations with the actual users and our dealers and what we can do from there.
Get some of that feedback. Exactly.
Yeah, for sure.
Okay guys, well, hey, we're getting a little bit closer to harvest. From, you know, Jason, let's start off with you. From your perspective, what's kind of the environment right now in US ag, from AGI's perspective?
You know, the ag market is different everywhere you go. Some guys have had enough rain, some guys haven't had enough. There's some crops that really look to be bumper, and there's other ones that are, some people will say mediocre or poor. So it's, Everybody needs something to do, and they're all looking for what do we have and how are we going to get ready to take off what we have. So, you know, corn prices have seemed to have shot up here just a little bit.
They have.
And that's been a key thing that people have talked about at the show, and just those few extra cents and getting that price to come up is real big for the farm market.
Yeah, you know, Jason, one of the things I, you know, we've done a number of different on-locations with AGI across Canada and the US, and a big part of it is, okay, how can we assist in this, you know, getting the farmer, you know, helping them to get the crop off the field as fast as possible with some of the auger lineup and things like that, but also the storage of it and the handling of it and all of that. Logistics play so much into the operations nowadays.
It does. And one of the things I think we've done a great job with over the last few years is pure innovation, both on the portable side of our business and on the storage side of our business. You know, you look at some of the products we have here today that I'm sure some of your other guests are going to talk about, and I don't want to steal their thunder. But that innovation is from listening to the voice of the customer and finding out what they need And what are the problems that they currently have with our product and fixing it and taking it to the next level.
Kent, are you detecting a little bit more optimism from the farmer customer right now?
You know what, I think no matter when you are, when we looked at what we did, even when we had some tougher times and where we were, those were the times where you wanted to talk to your farmers. You wanted to find out what their efficiencies needed, how could we fix it in. be beneficial for them getting closer to the customer. So it doesn't matter whether it's higher corn prices right now or the lower corn prices, we have to analyse and look at every aspect of that at all times. And talking to the farmers when things aren't good and when they are good is— you don't truly find out what their needs are unless you hit all those market conditions and situations.
Yeah, and one of the interesting things that I've seen here since spring where there was a lot of talk about, oh, there's structural change happening, it's not just a down cycle, It feels like there, you know, all that it takes is the corn market to come up a little bit and maybe our perspective changes. But one thing we have seen with the Purdue Ag Barometer, we've seen with our Canadian Farmer Sentiment Index, is a little bit more optimism around the capital spend. It is, you know, it's not the perfect time to invest capital, but it's a lot better maybe than it was earlier in the year, which is obviously good for a show like this for sure, Jason.
Yeah, it is. And I think Farmers are typically usually optimistic people, and I think they're keeping their dollars close to their heart, I guess, or they're just struggling when's the right time to buy. And I think having the ability to react when they do make that decision, because ultimately, as every operation progresses, you are going to have breakdowns, you're going to have to replace things. And in a year like this where they weren't as optimistic as normal and they wanted to fix more equipment. In some cases, it just got to the point where we're not fixing this anymore and we do have to make that expenditure, right?
Yep, that does make a lot of sense. Okay, Kent, from your perspective, where do you see some of the opportunities for AGI equipment in the farmyard?
Well, from us, it's everything that we do from a farm. Where does the future hold and where we go from that? It's Endless, I guess, in what we do. So I think right now when we have the new product lines that we've been launching, it's how we get it to decrease the amount of downtime that you have. How are you making it more efficient? When we have that time where we want to get off that crop, we only have a certain timeframe where we have to do the work. So if we can take any product that we can do to make their job easier, more efficient, and less downtime, It's all benefit to the bottom end and to what you have for expenditures as far as that goes. So that's the whole idea. Every time I approach, it's like, okay, how do I solve this issue to maybe have one less time that an auger is down? Or how do we take this approach to make it easier? What can we do to make it more efficient for you? One less labour person that can do the work around that or innovate from that side. So it's endless to where we can take the innovation.
Yeah, and you just, you look back in the product development cycle, there has been a lot of changes, and not just in products but also what the customer expects, Jason.
Yeah, people want, they want to have very easy maintenance, and it's something that they've always wanted, and it's something that they push us really hard, but they also want capacity. If you look at just going from a You know, a 3,000 bushel an hour auger to a 6,000 to an 11,000 to a 20,000 bushel an hour unit. People want speed, that's super important to them because time is money, especially as some farms continue to increase in size, that's super important to them.
Yeah, so interesting about the less maintenance part, is that being driven by maintenance you know, trying to minimise maintenance costs, which I'm probably sure it is, but is there also an element of we've got people coming back to the farm that maybe didn't take like, you know, like ag mechanics or you weren't in a welding class, they may have taken a business degree or something like that. The skills on the farm are changing, which I think of when you say less maintenance.
Well, and I wouldn't necessarily say just less maintenance, but ease of maintenance. Okay, so Being able to get to, get to a particular area without spending hours and hours and hours taking it, taking it apart, right? And I think that's like you said, some of the individuals that are coming back to the family farm may have gone to business school and they may not be as mechanically inclined, but the easier that we can make it and the easier to get to some of these things, it'll also help them to want to to want to have that maintenance schedule.
So as we get a little bit closer here to harvest, what are dealers and what are some of the questions or thoughts that, you know, there's the farmer customers, also the dealer, and how are those different? Who wants to take that?
I'll take that one. I think from the dealer perspective right now, what's your lead time? I think that's the biggest question they have is how fast can I get it? Because of delayed decisions that were being made by the producers, some retails didn't bring in as much because they expected the year wouldn't be as great, and now there is starting to be some increased demand. So I would say that's the number one question we're getting from them.
It is kind of the battle of the balance sheet, right?
100%.
Who's going to have that inventory on the balance sheet? The manufacturer, the dealer, or the farmer?
Yes.
And getting it through that as quick, you know, basically as quickly as possible, right? When the farmer needs it, but it doesn't just happen with a snap of the fingers. We've got more coming up here from the AGI booth. We're visiting with Jason Jones and Kent Woods from AGI. We're at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, here on RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 143, and back right after this.
It feels good to get the last of the crop in the bin.
Sure does. And next is figuring out our grain marketing plans.
Lately, I've been hearing a lot about CCGA cash advance and how we can use it for cash flow on the farm now so we don't have to rush to sell our crops. This year we can get up to $500,000 interest-free.
Hmm, a CCGA cash advance could be a good idea.
I'll give them a call in the morning.
Visit ccga.ca for details. Cash advances are made under the Government of Canada's Advanced Payments Programme. It's summertime and you've got a lot of important decisions to make when it comes to your corn crop. Let the Corn School on RealAgriculture.com helps guide you through those big decisions with input from leading experts in the field. If it's spray timing, disease identification, or any other field issue, the Corn School's got you covered. The Corn School on RealAgriculture.com, brought to you by BASF and Pride Seeds.
Peter Johnson, @WheatPete, RealAgriculture.com. I'm the host of The Word, and I love doing The Word.
I love the questions.
I love the challenges. I love having to apply agronomics to all over the globe and areas outside of my normal jurisdiction. Also, I love the feedback the most where growers challenge me, tell me about their plot results, help me to learn. The word, absolutely the best part of my day. And we are back here on RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 143 on SiriusXM, with the Farm Progress Show. I had the chance yesterday as I landed in Des Moines, went to— a friend of mine had said, you got to go to Casey's and you got to get pizza. I'll tell you, recommend.
Really?
Oh, they make it fresh in the gas station. Fantastic. I'm— you're laughing. I promise you, I'm telling you, you got to cheque out the Casey's pizza. It is pretty good. No, we Yeah, we've got some people shaking their heads, but I disagree. As somebody that is a bit of a road warrior on the road lots, I'm going to say it's pretty good. It's pretty good. We're joined here by Jason Jones, who is Senior Director of US Farm Sales with AGI. We've got Kent Woods, who's Head of North America Product Management, also with AGI. You know, earlier, guys, in the last segment, you were talking about ease of maintenance and then capacity. And I ask the tractor manufacturers and planter manufacturers and companies like that all the time, how big can we actually go with some of that stuff? Is that a question that comes up in your guys's line of manufacturing as well?
There's always that, like, how much more capacity can we add to a conveyor or an auger? Like, you can only put through so much through a 10-inch Tube or a 13-inch tube, right? You can only move so much particulate. But the question is that at that point is how do I move it through there the most efficient way to use a smaller tractor? How do I reduce the horsepower needs? How do I do that? So there's always room for improvement where I'm sure if you would have looked back and, you know, if we look back in 1996 like Jason alluded to earlier, we moved 3,000 bushels an hour in one of our 15 Series and now the new LX4 that's shown here is doing 9,000. So the scale of where we take the scale of where we've went to, it's— there's definitely been some huge growth in where we go back through it.
That was one of our big conversations we did the show at Ag in Motion in Saskatoon, was talking about how to get the capacity but not have a huge jump in horsepower required. In some ways, try to reduce that horsepower because the farmers paid it at a time where we're paying attention to costs. That's a cost, right? It can't be, you know, capacity can't be the only milestone.
It isn't going to be the only milestone, it's going to be part of it, but you got to be cost, you have to be horsepower, it's all about fuel costs, it's any of the inputs, the outputs that we do around farming, we have to find a way to reduce all those aspects and make the job easier and more efficient from a farmer. So a maintenance cost, a downtime cost, and an auger when we're running an auger like I said or a conveyor or or wherever we're going that way, we only have a certain cycle, we only have a certain time frame where we have to go. So how do we get it to our service points and our maintenance points is easy to accessible? How do we do it that way, eliminate downtime? So I'm moving however many truckloads in a day and increasing that. In the end, I'm increasing what we can do on the farm, and that's the whole reason we want to do with all of our farms.
Yeah, you know, Jason, it gets back to the logistics point of view, right? Yeah, we focus so much on like growing the crop and like, you know, people come back to the farm because I love farming, but so much of this business is really about logistics.
Yeah, it is about logistics in the sense that, you know, one of the exercises I've actually been involved with, not with Kent but with other engineers at AGI, was the amount of steps that a person takes in a day. When you talk about fatigue and trying to move things around and When you talk about the truck driver and getting up and down out of his truck and having to move a swing auger in and out and get up and down in the tractor and just all those steps, and that, you know, that can cause some— it can tyre a person out.
Yeah.
Right, so the other thing we have to consider when it comes to capacity is it's great that we can build these things that can move this grain that fast, but one of the considerations that we tend to not make is what happens on the other end. When you drop that much grain that fast into a bin, or you drop that much grain that fast into a truck, what kind of— now the manufacturer of that truck, or the manufacturer as we are of the bin, has to make that consideration that I'm not dropping this much grain, I'm dropping this much grain on that floor, and what kind of effect does that have? So There's a lot of things to consider when you're, when you're looking at the total logistic picture.
Yeah, and every, you know, when we set up a bin yard, or if we want to phrase it that way, the preparation, the design of it is critical, right? We've all been in that situation where, you know, a lot of times we don't do these things all in one stage. It's like, you know, it's added on. Well, we, you know, we got a little bin pod here, we got a bin pod over here, and all that kind of stuff. It's like, oh, I wish we wouldn't have done that. Like, there's always that regret because maybe we didn't do some of the planning up front to think about some of the things that you're talking about there, Jason.
You go back, I don't know how many years ago, but you, you think of driving down the highway and seeing rows of bins, or you've got bins that are on an L. Oh, not planned. And it's like, oh, they thought it was great, they could use, you know, and you, you look at that now and you hear a lot of the younger generation of people that are coming up going, What was Dad thinking, or what was Grandpa thinking? So when you're planning out the receiving and the moving of your grain, yeah, you really got to take a lot of time to think about what it can be like in not just 5 years or 10 years, but even potentially 30 or 40 years down the road.
And some of these, you know, we talked about capacity earlier, but based on some of the farm sizes, some of the farms They're putting up bin structures that would be more of a commercial operation, you know, going back 15, 20 years ago.
You know, when you, when you sold lots of 30-foot and 36 and 48-foot bins, and now you've got farmers that are coming to you saying, I'm needing a 90-foot bin that's going to hold, you know, 300,000 bushels of grain, that's— there's a lot of farms that are leaning towards that bigger storage.
Yeah.
When we're designing stuff, we have to take that into consideration, right? Whether you've got a 10-inch or you have a 16-inch auger or a bucket elevator that can go from 5,000 up to 120,000 bushels an hour. You're almost looking at, as a whole, how do we do a product offering now that goes from small, like you say, up to 100,000-acre farms in some locations that we deal with? And I think the good thing about us is we've been partnering with different size of farms and we've had that thing through innovation where we're looking at running on a 100,000-acre farm that we're going through it and we're trying to work and trying to work through everybody and listening with the voice of customer, the aspect of it to be able to supply the needs for every size that's out there.
Yeah, one of the things that, and we'll get to in our panel here in a little bit, but One of the things when we were talking about product development at the Ag In Motion show was the feedback loop of, of getting that feedback from the customer in terms of what works, what doesn't, where does it need to be improvements to try to speed up the cycle, so to speak, in terms of product development.
Yeah, your customer is probably the one that you're leaning on to create your innovation where you go. We all have a— anybody that's in a product development or R&D role has ideas, but the truth is, if we don't talk to the end user, whether it's our farmers or dealers, and establish that good relationship, then we're not truly knowing that we meet what the needs are. So we do that quite well at AGI. We sit with our dealers, we have conversations, we bring dealers up regularly, walk through it, our assembly manufacturer, like where our assemblers are, stuff like that.
Yeah.
You're trying to find that feedback at all times to figure out what can we do to make it that much better for the next time. So maybe you don't move from 9,000 to 10,000 bushels, but it's easier to assemble and there's less time or easier to move around your yard, and that's the next innovation. So there's something that we can always strive for.
So I'm curious, you know, we're always talking to the audience about, you know, need to focus on ROI, not just upfront cost. ROI is important when you're making capital purchase decisions. How do we measure the ROI of grain handling and storage equipment? How do we do that?
Look at me.
Yeah, you can't really pass the buck there, did you?
We have a 2-week window, like basically we have a week to a month window. It's pretty simple. Oh yeah, so when we're talking about portable grain handling, it's like at that point, how do I justify what I'm going to spend? Why am I spending A certain dollar value versus whatever, and I have to look at that point and go, if I have downtime for a day or 4 hours, that's money in my pocket that I'm not going in. In the meantime, my crop's downgrading and I'm losing money. So that's where you start to look at which piece of equipment is going to get us off the quickest I need within that means, and that might not be a 16-inch auger, that might only be a 13-inch auger, but it's got to be maintenance-free. It's got to be downtime, or if it is maintenance, it's got to be easy to use. So that's all stuff that you're trying to implement. That's how you justify the ROI or the cost, is the overall money you're saving by purchasing that new auger so that I can maybe run 4 trucks instead of 1 truck, and then I don't have to wait and I don't have wait time. If I can get that off the field, get it into the hands of the elevators, or move to wherever we want into a storage facility, we're better off.
I think about just to An example you made me think of is where, you know, if we're harvesting, we're hauling the crop back to the farm to our on-farm storage. You know, does there need— you know, if I can eliminate having to have a binyard person that's just sitting there for most of the day, you know, lots of downtime, and the truck driver can actually handle some of that, that's, that's creating ROI.
That's our ROI.
Yeah. Any further thoughts on that, Jason? No, no, he did a pretty good job.
You did a good job.
He was trying to pass, but actually he did a very good job.
Yeah, as soon as you looked at me, I'm like, no, he looked at you first.
Good stuff.
Well, I think though, no, if I would say something real quick about it, another thing that we look at when you— so we talk about capacity a lot, you know, when you start getting into the northern US and you know, north of the border, and you look at the amount of snow they get and how cold it is, if you can load a truck in 8 minutes versus 30 minutes, that means a lot to the truck driver. They're going to want to come to your yard, they're going to want to because you can load them that fast. So those little innovations and those things that save that time actually mean a tonne to producers.
100%. Amen.
That is so, so true. You just— yeah, exactly. There's listeners in North Dakota right now like, yep, that's correct. Hey guys, this has been a lot of fun. I really do appreciate it. Jason and Kent, uh, have a good rest of your Farm Progress Show, okay?
Yeah, appreciate it.
Thanks very much.
Great stuff. Okay, we've got more coming up here from the Farm Progress Show on RealAg Radio, back right after this quick break. All right, I'm good to sell my grain. Just send over the contract.
But Dad, seriously, it's 2026. Can't you do that online?
Well, yeah, I can with G3 SmartSell.
I just haven't tried it yet.
What's it all do?
Basically, I could sell grain from my phone with a few taps.
You know they make things easier for a reason, right? Besides, I'm sure you can still talk things through with your rep when you need.
Who raised you to be so smart? G3, always moving for you. Get started at g3smarter.ca.
Get all the information you need to keep your pulse crop healthy and profitable with the Pulse School on RealAgriculture.com. The Pulse School is a free YouTube video series covering agronomy, research, and more across a host of different pulse crops. It's also available as an audio podcast wherever you download or stream your favourite podcasts. Cheque us out on YouTube or visit RealAgriculture.com. The Pulse School, brought to you by BASF Canada.
I'm Lyndsey Smith, host of The Agronomist, and I want to thank you for tuning in for over 200 episodes of our beloved little programme. Join me Monday nights, 8 PM Eastern on YouTube for our live and interactive agronomy Q&A. Each week, our guest panel will handle some of your toughest agronomic questions live streaming on YouTube, Facebook, X, and RealAgriculture.com. Tune in Monday nights or go to RealAgriculture.com/Agronomist and sign up for our email notifications and don't miss an episode.
And we are back here on RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 147, SiriusXM. We're at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa. We're having some fun at the AGI booth. Really encourage you to go to AgGrowth.com to cheque out all the great products that AGI has to offer. We're having a great time here at the show. It is Like I said earlier, a little hot. Yeah, it's a little hot. It just— yeah, not complaining because it could be pouring rain, which would be worse. So we will, we'll take the heat and a little bit of the breeze is also, uh, Mother Nature, if you're listening, the breeze would be very appreciated here. We had a great chat with Jason and Kent, and now we're going to move on to our panel. And up first, you know, I, I would say backed by popular demand. Like when I had Woody on the show last time, I said Woody needs his own show. We're joined by Brent Woody Woodcock. Woody, how we doing?
Really good, thank you. Other than, you're right, Shaun, a little warm for us Canadians. We're not used to the 98% humidity, but we will survive.
It could be worse.
You got that right, it always could be worse, but how much worse, we're not sure and we don't want to find out.
Hey, listen, Crop Production Show Saskatoon, January, That weather will remind you it couldn't be a lot worse.
100%.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Well, it's great to chat with you again, Woody. We're also joined by Kaushal Dave. How are we doing today, Kaushal?
Good, good. How are you? It's, it's a little warm here, but I'll take it. It's still better than any, any rainy day.
Yeah. So what do you do at AGI?
I'm a design engineer with AGI for almost 5 years. I, I manage a couple of products. One of them is bucket elevator, what I'll be talking here today.
Yep, cool, awesome. You enjoying the show?
I am loving it. This is my first time.
First time? Yeah, you and I both. I've never been to this show either. Makes two of us.
No way.
I, I've never been to this show. I've been to almost every major North American farm show. This was the last one on my list.
Cheque that one off.
It's checked. Yeah, so it's, it's great. I love the, the paved alleyways and lots of space. It's fantastic.
It is, it is.
Yeah, really, you run into farmers from really across the US. I ran into some farmers from Brazil. In the media tent, there was media here from like from the Netherlands, and there's people from all over the world here. It's pretty cool.
It's a really big show.
Absolutely. Also joining us is— now Jake, I'm gonna screw up your last name.
Newyer.
Newyer. Well, yeah, okay, I'm not gonna screw up your last name.
Yeah, just don't read it off the sheet.
Yeah, exactly. I don't know who worked out the spelling of that, but There was some alcohol involved. It's the Germans. Well, there was alcohol involved. Yes, there was warm beer. Love, love visiting Germany for sure. Hey, how are you? What do you do at AGI?
Yeah, so I'm product manager for AGI. Been with the company now for about 7 years, but in the grain storage and material handling market space now for almost 15.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, cool.
So you've seen some stuff change.
Oh, a little bit. A little bit.
Yeah.
You enjoying the show?
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Boone's got a great setup here, great hospitality. Looking forward to the next couple of days.
Okay, so, and Kishore, I didn't ask you, where do you live?
Naperville, Chicago area.
Ah, are you a Bears fan?
A little bit. I moved from Kansas, so I am Chiefs fan.
Chiefs fan. You had me at the Bears fan. I was liking that. I was liking that. This is our year. Don't let the Packer fans tell you any different. It is the Bears year.
I hate to burst your guys' bubble, but—
Are you a Packers fan? I am, I am. How did I get beside the Packers fan? No! Oh, well, it's gonna be 2 great games. You know what, the playoff game last year was fantastic.
It was, it was. Wrong team came out on top, but it was a great game.
Well, that's, you know, it's all in the eyes of the beholder. Without question. When you guys are at a show like this, food, what did you guys tackle? Did you guys do the lunch here?
We did lunch here.
You didn't go out and—
Too hot to wait in line in the sun.
Yeah, I had like a rib sandwich.
It was very good.
The food here is always good. The barbecue here is always good.
Love barbecue. Yes, but there are people that are quite pretentious about it. There's certain types of barbecue. There's regional aspects to the barbecue. Yeah, people get pretty passionate about it.
And as I said, there's a different meaning of barbecue in different parts of the country.
So true. Yes, there's, there's the cattle analyst at Rabobank He, he— one time we were doing an interview on the cattle markets and he gave me this whole breakdown of the different regions and what makes, you know, barbecue different in each spot and the taste and the spiciness versus sweet and all that kind of stuff. It's, it's a whole thing.
Well, you come from—
Serious down south.
Yeah, where you come from, we're from, from Canada, that's unheard of. But nobody calls it barbecue. Once you start coming down south, it's just a whole different ball game.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah.
I love it.
What's your favourite kind of barbecue?
Uh, I prefer Texas, like Texas Southern, Deep Southern, kind of spicy hot barbecue.
Me too. Yeah, Kansas City's pretty good though too.
It is, it is. I don't eat red meat. I'll still stick with chicken.
Okay, well, chicken makes good barbecue too. There's no question about that.
It does, it does.
Woody, I—
I'm not picky.
Yeah, I was just gonna say Woody comes across as the guy who's like, I'll just, I'll take it all. Yeah, I still like Good stuff. Well, like I mentioned, we're at the Farm Progress Show here in Boone, Iowa. We're having a great time at the AGI booth. Make sure you go to aggrowth.com. We're going to talk about some of the new product developments at AGI and what these guys got cooking. We, you know, we talked about barbecue. Let's continue in the, the cooking theme here, and we'll get to that when we come back. You're listening to RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 143, back right after this.
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And we're back here on RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 147 or 143. I screwed up. We changed channel numbers this week and that's the first time I have screwed up. It is Rural Radio 143 on SiriusXM. SiriusXM, and we're at the Farm Progress Show here in Boone, Iowa. I got hungry talking about barbecue in the last segment, and we're gonna hear what AGI has cooking from a product development standpoint. Jake, let's start with you. You work in the structural area, so what is— what does that mean?
Yeah, so here on display today, we've got our all-new tower setup over here. It's to our left, so unfortunately we can't see it on camera right now.
We'll get some shots of it.
Yeah, yeah, so all new tower setup. Anyone familiar with our legacy structure towers know we used to manufacture those out of round tube.
Okay.
So we're changing it up here a little bit. We're going to go to a square structural member.
Okay.
That's going to give us a little bit more flexibility in the manufacturing process.
Okay, I was going to ask you why move away from round to go to square?
Yeah, square, it's going to be a lot easier to square up all the flanges. Obviously, anytime you put a flat surface on a round tube, it's a little bit hard to square up.
So why did it start round?
Just a legacy design from, from years and years ago. A lot of that was actually because of wind shear, how the wind would, would hit the column and wrap around it.
Interesting.
Square is going to catch a little bit more wind, but the square material is a lot, a lot more commonly, commonly used in the industry. Yep, a little bit easier for us to source as well, so it's going to help us keep our lead times down and help us improve our overall manufacturing efficiency.
Easier to source, maybe more options are easier to find, but also maybe has some cost advantages too?
A little bit, a little bit, yep.
Okay, how much innovation is there in like the structural area? Because I hear about, you know, innovations when it comes to augers and bins and all that kind of stuff. What about in your department?
Yeah, so I mean, structures obviously don't have a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving pieces, so all the engineering principles kind of stay put for us, right? Changing the game here a little bit by changing some of the materials that we're going to be using. We mentioned the square tube earlier. We're also changing our cross braces from round tube as well to angle iron.
Okay.
That's going to allow us to have more flexibility with how we design our cross braces. bracing. Okay, so today what we see is a lot of X bracing in our towers. We're gonna be able to incorporate more chevron, chevron design or A-frame type crossmembers. It opens things up for us a little bit. So as we need to integrate towers and our stairs and platforms and ladders and some of those other accessories with the structure, it just opens up so many more doors for us.
Did you— I don't have any sort of an engineering Like, it's, it's low on the skill set. There's other things I'm kind of good at. This is not it. Did you always know you want to do this?
Yeah, from being a small kid, right? My— a little bit more of a gearhead here, but my dad always was tinkering on something, right?
Always.
He likes to fix cars. So grew up kind of with that mechanical mindset. So it's one of the reasons why I got into engineering going, going into the university.
I have no mechanical skills.
But Shaun, I think of all that these guys are going to talk about, and myself, it's the voice of the customer. The reason why we do everything here is that we go to farm shows, we go on farm, every one of us does that, and the farmer tells us what they want. That's the big key, that's the key to AGI, is we listen to the customer, build what they want.
Is that how some of these changes started?
Absolutely, absolutely. Kushal's probably going to speak to this here in a little bit. But I mean, how many hundreds of hours and how many phone calls did we have with customers?
Hundreds and hundreds of hours spent with customers, with our dealer network and everyone hearing them. Sales, we are hearing them and putting everything in here. Apart from hearing customers, we are putting our safety first, putting every person who is working on the bucket elevator structures, we are looking into safety first.
Okay, Kishore, talk about some of the work you're doing on bucket elevators.
So this is completely overhauled, redesigned, newer bucket elevator. What we are going to see here, we released a more custom, bigger, and what do you call— help me out, you guys here—
more capacity.
No, more for bigger customers. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, bigger bucket elevator earlier this year in the Jeeps. This is a smaller farm version of those, and this one will accommodate 5,000 bushels per hour to 120,000 bushels per hour. That's a huge, huge, huge leg what we can do.
And I think that's it. You made a really important part when it comes to product design. A lot of times the product, we focus on like the largest capacity for some of the innovation happening. It's about offering some of those innovations no matter the size, right? Because there's all, you know, everything from commercial to, you know, a small farm, they have some of the same needs, right? And it's trying to make sure that you have that offering across the entire size lineup.
Yeah, I completely agree. We didn't want to just offer our best and best of the best to commercial. We also wanted to bring it to our farm side. So that's our commercial base, bringing it to farm side with multiple, multiple options. So you can always customise it based on what your needs are. If you need a bigger one or a smaller one, you can do anything with it.
I remember one time we were back in my seed plant day, we used to own a seed plant, and I remember we were doing a renovation and, you know, some things you kind of take for granted, right? You're like, oh, that's You know what, you don't realise there's lots of different options when it comes to the, the kind of bucket that you're putting on that elevator too, and, and what's going to be the, the safest handling across the spectrum, whether it's grains, you know, or, or oilseeds, uh, making sure you got the right fit for that operation as well.
Yeah, but Kochia makes an excellent point here. The elevator we brought has a lot of new options, a lot of new features on there. It was hard to pick just one to bring to the show. So we wanted to bring that full experience here to Farm Progress with us this year. But that elevator we're looking at is 100% configurable, so we can turn a lot of those options and accessories on and off throughout the quoting process.
And as a guy, for AJ, that does not work in the port or in the commercial business, listen to the speech this morning, like the benefits and features of this new bucket elevator. Easy access for the farmer to maintain, to service, Yes, it was huge. That's what I picked up right away. Yeah, like they, they listen to the customer. Every one of those panels, there's 6 panels, I think, on one side that come off, and you can get it back to your changing the buckets at your seed cleaning days.
Yep.
You know how easy that would have been?
Well, because you know what happens, okay? So if it's not easy to access, what ends up happening is you're in the middle of, you know, your cleaning season or whatever, you know, your, your, your season of your, your, your plant, and then you're like, I know I gotta fix that, but it's gonna be a shutdown. You It'll be okay.
And then one more year.
And yeah, and then what happens is that's when stuff breaks, and then it's like, then you've really caught yourself a self-inflicted wound. It was your decision. But that ease of access allows you to keep the maintenance up a lot better.
And the only thing I'd say is because you're on radio, but that, that opening of the door is like literally the back of a semi door. Like, how simple is that?
Yeah, it kind of looks like a U-Haul trailer.
Exactly what it is. Like, what a genius idea.
Yeah.
It is, it is. That, that's so much engineering went behind it. So our older panel was different panel size. We took that and we took our old, old, old design to completely customise it and make it semi-trailer style door. Just 2 padlocks, you unlock it, you open it, and you can do inspection to your buckets, belts, and the trunking, anything what you need for.
When I was talking to Jason and Kent earlier, we talked about ease of maintenance. That is a great—
Could you imagine changing buckets on a 10-foot open panel, Shaun? You would have been a happy man back in those days.
Yes, yes.
Not only that, Woody, but these bucket elevators become such a central part of the entire grain storage operation, right? Like, you can't receive, you can't load out.
It's like the grain auger at harvest time. It's a shutdown. If that shuts down, The whole operation shuts down.
Absolutely.
It's the bottleneck and the most important piece.
Yep.
So being able to get in there, get it fixed, get it done right away is critical here.
So much of this comes down to logistics, guys. We focus so much on the agronomic aspects of this business, which is important, don't get me wrong. Like, it is, it is, full stop. You got to have a crop in order to handle something, but you get to this stage and it's so much about logistics. Having the capacity at a reasonable power source and be able to, you know, do the maintenance and be able to not have the shutdown time and just be able to have trust in the fact we're going to operate is just critical.
Getting that grain off the field into the bins and getting the grain from the bins to the elevator to get your paycheck, it's kind of important.
Understatement, understatement. Yeah. Woody, what are you talking about here?
We're talking about the LCX4 we had in Saskatoon. We showed up in Saskatoon that day, the first customer walked by, kind of wanted it. And here's the same thing today, there's a gentleman waiting there at 7:30 this morning, kind of got his eye on it because it is good.
Okay, so talk about it.
It's the world's first direct drive conveyor, the swing-away conveyor. So instead of the hydraulic swing, we put a gearbox the gearbox and it literally runs off a 60 horsepower tractor, does up to 9,000 bushels an hour, but instead of a big 30 or 200 horsepower tractor, you can use your yard tractor like we had Scraggs in Saskatoon, right?
Yep.
And they have this little Kubota here and that's key because you don't have a big expensive tractor tied up to get the crop off the field.
I can use the yard tractor instead of having to take a large power unit away from the operation.
Well, we know at this time of year the grass doesn't grow anymore because it gets too hot, so you park your lawnmower, you take the mower You hook it onto the grain auger and you just saved yourself another tractor. And that's what Scraggs did, right? Yeah, guess what? It works.
So that is a great example of it makes so much common sense in product development. What has changed in the technology or what we know about, like, what has changed that allows us to do that now?
What allows us to do it now is because The farmer or end-user commercial demand a better product built and with serviceability, right? You look at these guys talk about this bucket elevator and this, this tower, how easy it is to put together, how easy it is to fix it, how easy it is to maintain it. We do the same thing on our conveyors, right? The easier to change the belt, easier to tighten the belt, easier to align the belt. The customer demands that because that, that's just what they want and they're okay with doing that. We demand it as the end user.
Sure.
Or TVs.
Okay, but you want a TV that works.
That's all you want.
Well, yeah, exactly. And I want it to be connected to Wi-Fi. There's a whole bunch of features that I want. So are we thinking more holistically now about product development?
Yes, 100%.
Okay, that is okay. Yeah.
And that's where the feedback loop comes in, talking to customers, talking to sales, talking to customers, bringing all of their feedback into the engineering where I sit, where we don't never get to expose to the customer. Now at this point, we are talking to sales and customers and taking their voice and working on them.
What would products look like if engineers didn't talk to customers? Would that be—
Well, you go back, go back 20 years, Shaun, we used to make them. Yeah, yeah, because people say, where did we come today? Our leadership team with Paul Breeswell, you talked to Paul, has given us the opportunity to, to grow in the company. You met the young engineers in Saskatoon like these gentlemen, right? They get to grow. They get to explore and they get to think outside the box. And that's important for a company to grow forward. Think outside the box, be the first and be the best. If you can't be the best, try to be the best.
That's actually an interesting— that's kind of a mindset shift and a challenge to like, it kind of gives you some open field running to like, okay, be creative here. And like, everything's not gonna be perfect. We got the feedback loop in place and we're able to make changes throughout. It's kind of like agile. Yeah, sort of engineering. Yeah, absolutely.
But by going on farm with these gentlemen, talking to 100 people, you actually get to know what they want. Yeah, yeah. And without that, you're—
I think you're a fish out of water trying to design something that you're pushing product. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hey guys, we're gonna take a break. We got one more segment though. They're gonna hang out here, uh, in, in the heat here in Boone, Iowa. They're, uh, what a, what a great cast of characters we have here today. You're listening to RealAg Radio from the AGI Boone Don't leave the farm progress. We're back right after this. Built on over 100 years of seed innovation and unwavering commitment to farmers, Pioneer 100 Series canola hybrids deliver a step change in yield performance and agronomic traits. This isn't just better canola, it's different canola. Pioneer 100 Series. Contact your local Pioneer sales representative or visit pioneer.com/100series to learn more today.
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And we're back here on RealAg Radio, Rural Radio 143, SiriusXM. If you have any feedback on today's show, love to hear from you. Send me an email, shaney@realagradio.com. RealAgriculture.com. Okay, we're at the AGI booth. We're with Woody Woodcock. We've got Kushel Dave and Jake New Year. I got that right?
Yeah, yeah, you got— you nailed it.
Yes.
Okay, all 3 guys with AGI. We're having a lot of fun here at the Farm Progress Show. It is, uh, if you've never been here, it is expansive. They're, uh, like, I see all the people on the golf carts, kind of highly recommend that. Like, I, I walked around the show and I've got about 14,000 steps.
And you probably only saw half of it or a third of it.
Yeah, I haven't done it all yet.
No.
Yeah, got a couple more days.
Yeah, exactly. Okay, uh, Kishore, let's start with you. What, as an engineer that's working on products and that, you know, trying to listen to what the customer is saying, what excites you right now?
Completely, to be completely honest, uh, growing newer and newer products. to help our customer out, that excites me every single day. That makes me wake up, go to work, and make something which changes the world and everyone can use it. Bringing everything commercial guys can have to smaller guys like farm duty guys.
Yep.
That helps them. And farmers are growing their business bigger and bigger nowadays so they can afford all of these newer products.
You know, So to that point, and shows like this offer that opportunity, right? Because you're here at the show, you know, of course the salespeople are here and they're meeting with dealers and farmer customers, and that's kind of their role in the company. But I think it's because of the amount of farmers that come to shows like this, it's good that the company brings engineers to actually have that face-to-face interaction, right? It's sort of like, I see this a lot where, you know, a seed company All the salespeople and the product managers are all in the booth and they're all talking to customers, but the plant breeder, people working, you know, in a lab, they don't ever get to talk to a customer. So this, this is a real opportunity to be able to do that. And, and, uh, it kind of does make you excited, especially when people show— when we talked about those doors on the bucket elevator earlier, right, where to see the reaction when you show people that.
Yeah, it absolutely does. There are so many people who walked in and looked at those doors and they were like amazed with it, how much easier it can be if they can put these doors on their existing leg and keep it still working. They don't need the whole system. They can replace the legs by itself.
Jake, how about you?
You know, Shaun, I've just, I've got a passion for agriculture. Some of my most vivid memories as a kid was growing up helping my grandpa on the farm.
Cool.
Learning to drive the tractor my great-grandfather bought brand new, the first tractor the farm ever had. So it's still in the family.
Do you remember what it was?
Yeah, it's an old Farmall Model H.
Oh cool.
Yep, yep. And before my grandpa passed, my dad, my uncle were able to restore that. So they'll still take it around to a couple of tractor shows every once in a while.
So some of the tractor companies here have really old models of stuff. I, I love that. That is so cool. Like, and if you— on the far end of the show here, they've got kind kind of a, what we would call antique tractor area. That place is packed over there.
They don't want to— some of the guys don't want to see the new stuff.
They want to go look at some of the old stuff and reminisce a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So where was the farm?
Uh, small little farm, um, in kind of east central Nebraska.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
So just across the river here from Boone.
But, but yeah. Cornhusker fan?
Absolutely. Went to the University of Nebraska.
Did you?
Yeah.
Nice. I've been to a few football games.
I have been to Lincoln I've been to Lincoln 3 times in the last year for different events. It's a nice place.
Yeah, a lot of good stuff happening in Lincoln.
You feel the football team's on the rise, or is it sort of—
what are we doing?
I gotta be a little pessimistic on this one until they, until they prove it here. I got to see some results before I'll get back on that bandwagon.
There's a lot of hope.
Think we're going back to the national championship every year?
Yeah, hey, I was, I was in Pasadena. I didn't go to the game, but I was in Pasadena I was in Saskatoon the last time they were at the Rose Bowl and they played Miami.
Yeah.
They didn't win that game.
No, we got our hopes up for that one too. We were confident heading into that one, but yeah, that one didn't end so well for us either.
Yeah, when this gig's over, I just want to talk— I just want to do college football. I would love to host a college football show.
Absolutely.
We all got a dream, what we're passionate about, right? Woody, how about you? What are you excited about?
The future, right? These young gentlemen in Saskatoon, you met the other young engineers. I mean, for an old guy like me with The career is coming, you know, coming to— it's closer to the end than the beginning.
You're younger than you look.
To watch where AGI is going is so exciting, right? I'm passionate to watch these kids grow and to teach the portable side. I do a lot of testing and work with young guys on the portable side. To watch them grow, like I said, to watch them get the confidence. Like, we're working on a new extender, we're tweaking our product, tweaking the extend, tweaking this conveyor. Watch these young kids think outside the box, just gets me excited because The future for AGI is so bright, and to watch what these young gentlemen did here today is amazing. And then to watch what we've done on a portable site, yeah, it looks pretty good.
You like when they challenge, they got new ideas.
What I like about it is the new ideas, and then once they get one and they figure it out, I'm assuming these guys are the same way, then you just watch them blossom and it just takes right off. It just explodes. All of a sudden they go from one idea, I think it's pretty good, they get it, they get the second, and then they've got 20, And they all work. It's amazing to watch them literally within months or years, short time, become that much better.
Okay, so we got just a few, a few minutes left here. Um, Jake, when you hear Woody talk about that, it— do you like— a lot of times we think about engineering. Yeah, we think about like, it's like very matter-of-fact, right? Like it's— you're, you're concerned about structure and weights and supports and all that kind of stuff, but there, there really is a creative process for really good engineers. Is that a characteristic?
Yeah, yeah, no, like you said, there's a little bit of an art to it too. Definitely science, but there's a little bit of an art to it as well. We're really stepping up our game on some of our research and development here as well, being able to get the products out into the field, test them, prove them before they go out to the market. Kushal and I were actually just talking here a little bit ago You know, all the voice of customer we've gotten on the bucket elevator here, we're looking at new ideas to bring some of those same elements to some of our other product lines too.
Oh, really? Oh, when it can— okay, that's where it gets kind of cool. It's like, okay, this worked here. Could we transport that idea into some of these other areas? That's really creative.
Absolutely. Watch it spread, not just vertically, but horizontally as well.
Well, I know one thing, Kishore's a lot better at math than I am, 'cause I had the time on the show sheet here. And I was like, oh, adding it, and he's just like, oh no, no, 40. Like, so, okay, cool guys, this has been a lot of fun. I really do appreciate it. Woody, it was great to see you again.
Yeah, you too.
And I didn't even impress these 2 guys on their best Woody storeys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got some Woody storeys. Best for off air though.
I bet you do. Well, hey guys, congratulations on the product innovations. Again, let's just circle through really quickly, go one through each of you, the product design that you are excited about, the product, or the product development that you're showing at the show here that you're excited about.
Yeah, so I'll start. Jake Newyear, I'm here representing our structural products, our new tower innovations that we've got here at the show today.
Yep.
Kushal Dave, I'm here to represent our newest bucket elevator, which is built on our 3 pillars of Reliability, safety, and maintenance.
It's pretty bloody cool, those doors.
It is pretty cool.
I am not gonna lie, I'm taken back to my old seed plant days. Yeah, the cold inside that seed plant and just have that access.
The door was this big and you're shoving your hands with a 7/16 wrench and you're going like scraping your hands.
You gotta put your tongue to the left to try to get it around to the back there.
Yeah, yeah, game changer.
No, it's just And it— that's the best part. Some of the best designs are the simplest.
Simplest.
It doesn't need to be complicated. Like, I look— how do we not think about this before?
We do the same thing all the time on our side of the business, right? The board was like, it's been out there for 10 years. This is innovative to our product, and we changed the old KISS principle. Yep, you got that right.
The KISS principle works. And Woody, how about you?
The LCX4. World's first direct drive swing conveyor. It's pretty important and it's a game changer for us.
There's been a lot of excitement both at Canada shows and here as well. Well guys, really appreciate you joining me here today. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Had a lot of fun. Okay, like I said, if you have any feedback on today's show, I would like you to send me an email, shaney@realagriculture.com. You can also call or text the RealAg feedback line, 855-776-6166. That is it here from the Farm Progress Show from RealAg Radio. But make sure you go to RealAgriculture.com and cheque out all the great content. Bernd Tobin from our team has been— he has been putting on the steps, going booth to booth and getting all the latest products and innovations from the show here. So encourage you to go to RealAgriculture.com and our YouTube channel over the next couple weeks to cheque it all out. Thanks everybody for getting real and getting connected with RealAg Radio, and a big shout out to AGI. We'll talk again tomorrow. Cheers everybody.
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