(brawny rock music) ♪ Hey ♪ Hey ♪ Hey - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

Agriculture is definitely a profession that you have to evolve.

You have to stay on top of your game, and today's guest has done just that.

Today, we're talking with Brad Forkner.

How you doing, Brad?

- I'm absolutely wonderful and tickled to be here.

- Oh, okay.

I see you're a Chiefs fan.

- If you go back, Chiefs were in the Super Bowl the second year, right?

- [Rob] Okay.

- I wore my same Chiefs sweatshirt 25-27 years in a row waiting for my Chiefs to get back to the Super Bowl.

That's the dedication it takes to be a farmer.

- Nobody cares.

Nobody likes the Chiefs.

Now, the Bears are doing well.

- Bears are doing well.

- So that's the only reason we're bringing up football.

- You're from Cherry, Illinois.

Very small town?

I dunno, under 500?

- 400.

Birthplace of Workmen's Comp.

- Unfortunately, yes.

The Cherry Mine disaster.

What, 300 and... No, 260?

- 250 or 260 made it out.

250 or 260 did not.

- So it wasn't... That was around 1900s, right?

- Yeah, '13 maybe.

November 8th.

- Horrible.

- Horrible.

- They still... I mean, it's still referenced every once in a while, you know, just in conversation and that.

But does it get brought up much in the town of Cherry?

- Every so often, they'll go back and have... There was actually a guy that drew a... He built a square... What do you call it?

- [Rob] Monument there?

- No, a scale model, of the whole town back when that was there.

- Oh, okay.

- And so the slag pile, which typically are completely full of iron... Somebody's got enough calcium out there, that's full of trees again.

- The big pile.

- The big pile.

We call it the Cherry Mountain.

- It does look like a mountain if you're, you know, - Yeah, but it's a slag pile.

- driving down the interstate.

You could mine that if you wanted to?

- You could probably go still down in there, yeah.

We pay- - Maybe we'll just leave it.

- mine subsistence insurance.

- Oh, still?

- Still.

- You aren't settling, are ya?

- No, but the veins were 230 and 500 feet down- - [Rob] Oh, okay.

- and went out about a mile and a quarter.

- You ever go to that Rip's Chicken?

- Yeah.

- That's in Ladd?

I haven't been there in years.

All right, focus, Brad.

We're talking about you.

Okay, you are a nutrient management specialist.

What does that mean?

- Well, I guess what it means is when I was in college and I hated chemistry and they'd try to keep me awake long enough take a quiz, eventually, that's how I make my living.

Life is chemical exchanges, right?

- [Rob] Okay.

- Every day.

So, I started out in the seed business.

Then I said, "You know what transitioned through the seed business, Well, they were giving away the agronomy to get the seed sales away from me."

So I said, "I need to change my game.

Keep up.

Get in or get out," right?

"Stay relevant."

And so I got into... I worked for UAP, United Agri Products.

- [Rob] Oh yeah?

- So we learned then, you know, typically; most people don't always think about it; if you're raising Monsanto, which is now Bayer, most of that stuff was raised- - For now.

We'll see.

- on that chemistry.

- When this airs, it might not be Bayer anymore, but we'll see.

- Do you want me... You wanna back that up, just cut it out?

- No.

- Oh, okay.

- I think it's humorous.

- So anyway, when you think about it, each company's genetics is raised with all of their own chemistry, so there is a bent for that to perform better in that company's chemistry.

Now, I'll go ahead and open up the veil just a little bit and talk about black box money.

Can I do that?

- I have no damned clue what you're talking about, but I'm enjoying it.

- So, each company comes in there, and each rep would come into us one at a time at a meeting, and they said they're on me to sell more residuals: "And if we sell more residuals, I'll give you a better deal here, on this thing that I'm priced a little high on, so what you need to do is you put my residuals out with somebody who doesn't normally respray.

We'll take 20,000 outta the respray money and take it off the upfront cost.

That'll put you back in the marketplace, and that'll keep both of us employed."

- Oh, okay, well, it sounds like a good deal for everybody but me.

- Well, when it comes to you, if I like you, I'll sell you the generics that (indistinct) work.

- That's a problem.

None of my salesmen like me.

- We have some of that going on.

I call that basic American greed.

That's why I'm now an independent.

- So you don't answer to anybody.

- My wife.

- Oh.

See, I've been there.

Is she a nice lady?

- She absolutely is.

I got two ladies that no man on Earth probably deserved.

And some people can get- - Well, explain that.

- I lost my first wife to Lou Gehrig's back in 2006.

Spent the next 5 1/2 years straightening out all the bad things that was going on with me so that I could convince another lady that it would be the best thing she could do to help me finish out life.

- Okay.

Well, that's fantastic.

Does she have any vision problems?

- Yeah, she sure does.

Without the glasses- - Sorry.

(Brad laughs) I'm sorry, Brad.

(laughs) You're originally from Nevada, Missouri.

Correct?

- Yes.

- We know where that's at.

We actually shot this show in Nevada, Missouri, one time.

Yeah.

You weren't there.

Bunch of ne'er-do-wells.

- Yeah, well, actually, I went to Metz- - Hooligans.

- which is about nine miles north and west of Nevada.

- [Rob] Yeah, so they don't like each other.

- Well, they do now 'cause they all go school together, but when I was there, we had 10 kids in my graduating class.

- [Rob] Okay, all right.

- And to be in the top 10% didn't give you much leeway.

(Rob wheezes) - All right.

Focus, Brad.

- All right, I'm focused.

- You went to school in what, Mizzou?

- Mizzou.

1972 to 1976.

- What were you studying there?

- Well, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, so I started taking chemistry.

Then I thought, "I think I wanna be an animal scientist and go home and raise livestock," until I got to my senior year, when I was getting ready to take the anatomy and physiology of animal reproduction from Dr.

Billy Neil Day.

And he is... His weekly quizzes were harder than most people's hourlies.

And my dad wasn't gon' let me go five years, so I'd made sure I had enough agronomy hours that I could still get outta there, so before they gave you dual degrees, I actually have enough hours for animal science and agronomy.

- But you couldn't get one back then.

- They wouldn't give you both.

You had to declare one way or the other.

- You should call 'em and see if they'd do it now.

- I should do that.

- Wait.

We know people.

- I mean, back then, we had to punch cards to run the computers, right?

You'd run 700 cards and you punched one wrong, you'd have to dig down to 700, retype it, put it back in, see if that was the only mistake you made.

- Do you know what he's talking about half the time?

Okay, punch cards, yeah.

Now we have phones.

We can do all that- - You have phones.

- on your phones.

- Did you ever have crank phones?

- No.

Oh, I had the dial- - No, we had cranks- - but not the crank.

- through the first two pig sales.

- Like, the old military ones?

- Yeah, long, shorts, and longs.

- Those are actually worth quite a bit money online.

Do you know why now?

- Why?

- Because people will, like, hook it up to their buddy- - Oh, cranky?

- and crank it and they shock the heck out of 'em.

- It's good for fishing.

(Rob chuckles) - Where the hell were we?

Okay, all right, hold up.

Lemme ask some questions here.

Okay, so, your senior year of college, tell me about starting the farm there.

- So, there was an opportunity to lease 1,200 acres that came with 200 cows for cash rent, and knowing how hard it was come up with ground, I jumped into it.

So I farm Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, went to college Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, carried 17 hours, 180 miles apart.

- Back then, 1,200 acres, that's, I dunno, the equivalent of 6,000-7,000 now, maybe?

- It was an undertaking.

We also had some sows.

- It was a big deal.

Like, how big of a planter did you have?

- Six row.

And then we went to an eight.

- Oh, big-time.

(laughs) - And back then, your anhydrous, you actually had a Clark chisel plow with a tank on it.

And you filled the tank.

You didn't pull the tank.

- Okay, yeah.

Oh, ah, that sounds like you could clear the sinuses real easy.

- Oh yeah.

You went in with a 2 1/2-ton truck, got your dry fertilizer, and you scoop-shoveled it into the planter.

- Oh, that sounds horrible, too.

- And it was a lotta work.

- Good thing you had ProBoxes back then.

So, not just 1,200 acres.

You had what, 200 cows?

- 200 cows.

- This wasn't dairy, though.

- No, those were beef- - This was cow calf?

- all Angus.

- Okay, and 80 sows.

- 80 sows.

- So you were farrowing 80?

- Farrowing 80 sows, yeah.

- Ooh.

- My brother was one of the past presidents National Pork Board.

I grew up in the pig business.

He was all Durocs.

Had a few Hamps.

So I came in there with Chester Whites.

- The red ones.

- He had the red ones.

- I like the Whites myself.

That's what we raised, yeah.

- Whites are fine.

They don't have the marbling or the meat tenderness of the colored pigs.

But they're okay.

They grow fast.

- That's an opinion.

(bell pings) (Brad laughs) (Rob laughs) Okay, so, I can't imagine going to school and farming that big.

Tell me what happened with it, going into the '80s.

- So what happened was I got out, and interest was about 9%.

We did okay for a couple years.

- [Rob] It's a high.

- And then it went- - High enough.

- to 11, 12, 13.

We still kinda holding it together.

Then we hit a drought, and 400 acres of corn averaged 30.9.

- Oof.

- And about that time, interest was going to 18.

Eventually topped out at 21.

And I'm setting there with a wife and one little kid, and we're setting there cross table and said, "Is there anything we can legally do to turn 21% interest?"

And we decided the best thing I could do was to pay everybody off before I went out backwards.

I went on the road as a contractor for popcorn in seven states for a company outta Nebraska.

- All right, hold up because that says a lot about you because, I mean, back then it was "we're getting dinked by the banks and all that.

Just wrap it up.

And who cares who gets left holding?"

but you paid everybody off.

- Everybody got paid off.

After I left the farm, we were paying $500 a month at 18% interest on not a whole lotta salary, but we paid it off.

- Okay, so you're selling popcorn.

Like, are you selling... I dunno.

What do you mean?

You're not selling, like, bag popcorn.

Outta the field?

- I was getting the people to grow it.

I monitored it.

I told 'em what to expect for harvest tonnage.

I decided which plant was gonna go to.

The white went here.

The large kernel went here.

The pre-popped stuff that was going to California went out to Western Nebraska.

In the off season, I actually ran in and run the plant, so I learned how to run destoners, how to run gravity tables, how to run polishers, how to run the different screens because we also had dry edible beans.

And if you go in there at the right time, you'd catch enough dry edible beans for the whole winter, just bag them off on the side for yourself.

- Back then, though, that popcorn, that plant didn't stand up very well.

- It did not.

And in Western Nebraska- - Did you have to convince- - it would fall down, and when you had the header down there, you picked up a lotta sand; thus the destoner.

- Oh, okay, yeah.

Apparently, that's improved quite a bit.

- A bunch.

- Has it?

- A bunch.

- So you shouldn't really worry about corn falling down if you're growing popcorn now?

- They're doing better.

I won't say it won't fall down, but they're doing better.

- That's what they say about this show.

Okay, so how long did you do that, sell the popcorn?

- So, I did popcorn for three or four years.

Went through the PIK year.

Had an interesting experience in Western Kansas.

- [Rob] Nobody knows what that is.

The PIK year.

- Payment in kind for not planting.

- That was the... It wasn't a subsidy program.

It was a ag program, right?

- It was taking stored grain out of CCC and replacing what you would've grown.

And so that one year, popcorn did not count as corn against your corn base, so we were gonna plant popcorn for silage.

- Oh.

- Hit another drought.

- Oh.

- So then it was my job to go back out and see could we get some of this popcorn brought back in, because we're gon' be short of popcorn as well.

So, I'm out Northwest Kansas.

Planted at 12,500.

I get- - That's really low.

- That's really low, even for out there, 'cause it doesn't rain, and I'm trying to set a John Deere 55 with a two-row 38-inch corn head that the deck plates had not been moved in 15 years.

- (snickers) Yes, that's... It's a myth.

You don't ever need to move those.

- So it was a myth.

Anyway, the experiences from doing that got me into every type of irrigation, non-irrigation: clays, sands, rolling hills, blow sand, heavy clays.

That's when I got interested in all the different types of agriculture.

That has served me well.

- Okay, I don't know what... I'm just gonna move on 'cause there's a time limit and you've got a lot to talk about.

Tell me about starting your business, the nutrition management.

- So, what I did was I'd been in the seed business.

Talked about being at UAP.

That got rolled into crop production, which is now Nutrien.

- Was that when you said my uncle was a dealer for you?

- Yeah, when I first moved to Illinois, I was working for the Moews Seed company out of Granville, which is up there, north of McNabb, the south of Spring Valley up in there.

- My uncle Harley Regger- - Your uncle Harley.

- from Toulon, Toulon, Illinois- - Your uncle Harley taught me how to whittle.

- He was a character.

- He was a character.

- Yeah, he was a great guy.

Has, sadly, passed away, but he was a fantastic guy.

- So, anyway, I'm setting here working with the technical services person for Loveland, and Loveland was the private side of UAP, which is now probably a lot of what they still move through Nutrien.

So we're doing 12 things one way, three the other way.

I get 36 new looks, and I'm saying, "Man, I like these things over here.

I hope I get sell those next year," and he says, "Guess which ones have more margin.

Not the ones you're pointing at."

- Well, what did?

- Too many of today's ag companies... And because I'm old and crotchety, I'll just go ahead and tell you what I believe.

I believe that they're totally stockholder-driven, it's all about the margin, there are better things than most of the farmers will ever see.

And I made that statement, and I got a tap on the shoulder, and I was told, "If that is your philosophy, I bet you oughta go do that."

- So you're saying there's stuff out there that is much better than what we're using but the money's not there.

It's like the theory that there is actually a cure for cancer but they're not releasing it, because they're making too much money treating it, okay.

All right, well, I want the good stuff.

- That's why I formulate from scratch.

What's in your soil?

What's in your plant?

Have you validated it?

What are we gonna do next?

How many times you gonna be in the field, and here's your options.

You get to this year now.

We went the other way.

Would you rather raise 260 bushel corn and make 50 cents?

Or would you rather raise 200 bushel corn and make 75?

- I don't want to math right now.

- Well, you can actually make $20 an acre more raising less if you put in less input.

- Sounds like less work, too.

- Less work, and get rid of the glut.

- Okay, and maybe this is just because I've been inundated with the advertisements over the year.

Then you're deleting your soil.

- No, I didn't say don't take care of it.

I said chase the bushels that make you money.

Don't chase the ones that don't.

Too many people don't know their actual cost of production.

When I ask somebody, "How much corn can you raise and make 50 cents a bushel?"

they don't know that number.

- Generally, the answer is "it'll work out."

- "It'll work out."

- Half the time, it does.

Okay.

Tell me about what this thing is.

- So, I had for three years been using the Leaftech scanner.

Little-bigger machine.

Does a wonderful job.

And the price to rent that every year... And I won't say what it is, but it was substantial.

- [Rob] Price of a car?

- Price of one when I started driving.

- Well, okay.

- (chuckles) Right?

(Rob laughs) This machine came out.

I started looking at it back last December.

This is the second year, maybe third year, for this thing to actually be out.

You open this up.

You put your leaf in there.

And they got a little app on your phone.

You say, "Ready to go."

You put it in: "This is corn.

This is over at the Sharkey place.

This is the back 40," whatever it is.

I can do one and tell you what's in that one.

It's not really representative of what's going on, so what we typically do is we'll go by and we'll catch 15.

Within 15 seconds of catching number 15, I've got an average already back on my phone.

- So you can see what that plant is needing.

- What it has and what it needs.

- Okay.

I mean, we work with the Hefty brothers quite a bit, too, and they do, like, the paper punch thing.

Is it the same concept?

- Yeah.

They're sending in pieces of leaf.

Some of this, in my opinion, because of... How does soil work?

Right?

You're looking at color spectrums.

Every nutrient has a color spectrum.

How do we make fireworks?

- We ask China to make 'em?

- Well, you take... If you want a yellow one, you use sulfur.

If you wanna blue one, you use copper.

And so you find those patterns within soil.

You find those within leaves.

The denser the pixelation the more there is, so this will give me an NPK.

This will give me, you know, your zincs, your sulfurs, your manganese, your magnesium.

This will gimme boron.

This will even give me molybdenum.

- I don't... That one's a new one.

For me.

- Molybdenum and cobalt help form all nitrogens.

- Oh.

- Nickel makes the urease work, so if you're using something called urea or UAN and you're not using nickel, you're not activating the urease.

- See, all I wanna worry about is nitrogen.

I just wanna... N, P, and K, that's all I wanna worry about.

I don't want to have to worry about all this stuff.

You're making it difficult on me.

- I'm trying to make you money in a one-gallon package.

- Oh, okay.

- You add water to your house.

- So is this... - we figure out what needs to go in there.

We have that discussion.

How many times you gonna go out?

Well, if I've got one chance, I can either put something on the seed in the box if you have liquid, and a lot of Illinois does not.

Most of Nebraska does.

- You mean on a planter?

- On the planter.

- I might argue- - It would slow you down.

- with you.

I would say over half have liquid- - Do ya?

- on the... In my neighborhood.

That's all I know.

- Then you're progressive.

- But the application they're putting on a seed has come a long ways.

Is that... - So we started this... Well, we started working with the boys when the soy dust first came out as a lubricant, as a food source, as some amino acids.

Then that started getting some biology added to it.

We have expanded that now, bringing in the pecan fiber, which is a 66,500 antioxidant.

- The pecan?

The tree.

- The shells off of it.

- The nut.

Okay.

And you're putting that where?

- I'm putting that in the planter box because it and the soy dust both have a negative charge that will hold it to the seed.

There's enough lecithin that's added to the protein on the soy side.

There's enough oil still left on the pecan side that we can run that through a precision machine and come out 100% on singulation, where we need to be, know it's gonna stick to the seed.

So now we came in there, and we're putting four plant growth regulators in there.

We're putting four bacilluses in there.

We're putting six micronutrients in there.

We're gonna start now putting in the biopesticides, the biofungicides, the algae you're hearing about.

Some of those kinda things can all go in at one time.

- [Rob] All in the seed coating?

- All in your planter box seed coating.

- Well then, we don't need liquid anymore.

I'm gonna take that... Oh, I'm gonna put that on eBay tonight.

- All right, take that off.

Now, take your insecticide box that should be on there that nobody has and nobody uses.

- The planter was bought without them.

- That's why I'm telling ya.

See, then we could put dry humics and sulfur and all of your micronutrients in the granular form, drop 'em in, for about 1/3 of the cost you're paying for your liquid EDTAs.

- Okay.

Boy, this is a lot to digest.

(Rob laughs) You love this stuff- - I love this stuff.

- though, don't ya?

- This is my life.

This is my element.

- Ah, I got ya, okay.

All right, well, I mean, if people want to find you and ask you questions, where do they go?

What's your TikTok?

- So, I don't have a TikTok.

- Shocker.

- Shocker.

- [Rob] (laughs) Where do they find you?

- They find me on LinkedIn at my name, Bradford A. Forkner.

They find me on Bradford Forkner on Facebook.

They find me by my phone number, 815 257-8463, on "WhatsApp."

You can find me with that same number on "Snapchat."

And my email; you see this little NMS, Nutrient Management Specialist; it's brad@nutrientmanagementspeciali, plural, S on the end of specialist, .com, because without that somebody had already taken it.

- You know how easy it would be to find you if you were on TikTok?

- Well, probably would be.

- You do love this.

You can tell.

But I mean, you're really old.

How much longer are you gonna do this?

- My bride and I have that discussion daily.

- Yeah (laughs).

- There used to be three things I did when I got up in the morning.

- Oh God.

- You look in the mirror: "Can I compete?

Am I relevant?

"- - With what?

Okay.

- and "Is it fun?"

Four months ago, I read an article about a hospice nurse who had set down with 70 people, 80 people, 300 people for the last three weeks.

Now, the fourth question is "if I quit today, have I fulfilled my purpose?"

Do I wanna get up there and see St.

Peter and say, "You know, guys like Sharkey, they ain't worth it anymore"?

Bad answer, right?

- Nah.

Depends on the day.

(Brad laughs) Yeah.

(laughs) - So I've got people to teach and train.

That's kind of what I'm transitioning into.

I'm letting some of the younger guys do more of the physical labor, physical blending.

I still go out, scout out the new products.

That's where, like, the sargassum seaweed that's down... It's a problem for the people down there in Mexico and the whole Caribbean.

It washes up on the beach.

- The seaweed?

- Now you can't sell your resort time, because people can't get to the beach.

Our approach is to harvest it while it's still out in the water so it's not contaminated with sand so that we haven't lost any of the goody and to harvest that and turn that into a product for the agriculture that is very full of amino acids.

It's very full of all 19 micronutrients that are out in the sea.

- How do you get to combine in the ocean?

- You use suction hoses.

You kinda herd 'em like cats over here, and you take a suction hose, and you bring it into modified dump trucks.

Let the water back out so you can keep putting more in till you get it full.

You go over and ferment it- - Seaweed.

- and take care of any of the heavy metals that are in there, turn 'em into organic sugars.

- You're gonna ferment it, you might as well make booze out of it.

- You can eat it.

It'd make a salad.

- Brad Forkner from Cherry, Illinois, and Nutrient Management Specialists.

Brad, I wanna thank you for coming on the show.

- I want you to open this up.

- Uh-oh.

Oh, it's a... What is this?

- That is aronia juice that I helped grow in Viroqua, Wisconsin.

- Oh, I've had this before.

- Oh, you gotta take- - How do you... - the little thing off.

- Okay, okay.

All right.

Oh, this is gonna- - So what we didn't talk about is 28 different crops, 15 different states, and for the first time- - How do you get this thing off?

- That little piece of a foil?

- No, what comes off?

- The foil.

- Oh!

Heck.

I've been trying to... I'm really glad that didn't come off.

Wow, we're not wrapping up yet.

Just cut to your... Now what?

- Just open it and drink it.

- Push this button?

Open what?

- It's got a little valve on it.

- Oh, this thing has to come off.

- There you go.

- There we go.

No.

Okay, this is really ticking me off now.

(huffs) - Anyway, you do that.

I'll tell 'em, for the first time- - Oh, there you go.

- I'm growing potatoes in the state of Maine.

When you get ready to eat your watermelons here for Memorial Weekend, I had nutrition on them.

We started picking the watermelons, the honeydews, and the tomatoes last week.

- All right, no more talking.

Here we go.

Cheers.

- Cheers.

(brawny rock music continues) - Oh, Lord.

(wheezes) - Not as sweet as the blueberry.

It's good for you.

- It better be.

(Brad laughs) Good... All right, catch everybody next time.

(Brad wheezes) (Rob laughs) (brawny rock music) ♪ Hey ♪ Hey ♪ Hey (intimidating music) (brawny rock music) - If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore more of our local content.

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