(upbeat rock music) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag," my name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Now one thing about agriculture that a lot of non-farmers don't know is how precise and how technologically advanced our equipment is.

How's that for words?

- That's pretty good words.

- Today we have Nathan Zimmerman.

He's gonna explain all that stuff.

Nathan, you are a regional sales manager for Ag Leader, is that correct?

- I am.

I'm a sales manager for the eastern part of the US right now and into Canada.

So, I was a territory manager before that last year.

- Is that when they gave you the shirt that says Ag Leader?

- That's when I got this one, yep.

I haven't got a new one yet.

- They only gave you one?

- One shirt.

Yeah, I gotta be careful not to get anything on it.

- [Rob] Just the blue?

Honestly, they should give you, I don't know, a red one and a blue one and maybe a button down one for formal.

- I do have that for shows.

- And you wear that everywhere, church, Walmart?

- Yeah, I'm a brand ambassador for Ag Leader.

(Rob laughs) - Originally from El Paso?

- Yep, El Paso, Illinois.

- Grew up on a farm there?

- Sure did, sure did.

- What kind of farm?

- Corn, soybeans.

We had cattle, and we fed out cattle for a while.

That's since quit a couple years ago.

But yeah, corn, soybeans, did some alfalfa.

I grew up baling hay, so, yep.

- Baling straw is a lot better than baling hay.

- It is a little bit lighter.

- About half the weight?

- Yeah.

- It's a lot of work innit?

You were actually on what they call the rack?

So you had the tractor, the baler, and then it pulls the hay rack, you were the guy on the rack?

- Oh yeah, I was stacking, yep.

- [Rob] The dads were always driving the tractor.

- Mom, Mom drove the tractor.

- [Rob] Oh really?

- Dad did come back and help stack.

- [Rob] Oh, you had two people on the rack?

- Yeah, it wasn't terrible.

- That's kind of weak there in El Paso.

- Well, I was six or seven, so.

(Rob and Nathan laugh) - You went off to school, where'd you go?

- College, I went to Carbondale, Southern Illinois.

- The Salukis.

- Saluki, I am a Saluki.

- What years were you down there?

- 2007, 2008 through 2011, graduated in '11.

- [Rob] What kind of degree?

- Got an ag systems degree down there.

- [Rob] An ag systems.

- Yep.

- I don't think they had that when I went to Southern.

- Yeah, it was a broad overview of automation.

GPS was a very entry-level class in that.

- So tell me, what are they teaching you, how to fix stuff or what it is?

- Not that class, no, it was really just a broad overview.

We did have a lot of automation down there with the orchards for sorters and- - [Rob] They have orchards?

- Oh yeah, there's orchards down there- - [Rob] At Southern?

- Yeah, didn't you go?

- [Rob] I went there, but I don't- - You didn't drive- - I was in the Ag's... Oh, you mean not affiliated with the school?

- No, not at the school, but no, we got to see all that stuff hands-on down in Cobden and stuff.

- Boy, they didn't take us around.

We didn't get to leave the school.

- Well, why is that?

(Nathan laughing) - You tell me.

I will say, a peach from southern Illinois is the best peach in the world, better than Georgia.

- Yeah, I don't know, I never had one down there.

- You just got done making fun of me for not getting around.

- Well, you win some, you lose some.

(Nathan chuckles) - I guess, okay.

Tell me about your college experience.

Did you work any down there?

- I did.

I worked pretty well full-time after the first year.

Worked ahead at an appliance place out in the woods, actually, a few miles south of town.

- Worked in an appliance place out- - Used appliances- - In the woods- - Not used appliances, yeah.

- If that's not Southern Illinois, I don't know what is.

- That's as good as it gets.

- Why would it be out in the woods?

- That's where the guy lived, so he had his business out there.

- So people would bring you like a crock pot?

- Not that type of stuff, nah, washers, dryers, refrigerators, air conditioners.

- [Rob] They would bring it out to...

I wouldn't bring my washer.

- He would buy used stuff.

He would get used stuff from Lowe's, Menards, and we'd repurpose it, so.

- Out in the woods.

- And then he'd sell it, yeah.

He had a showroom out there.

- Lots of banjos playing?

- Not too many.

Not that I could hear.

- Okay.

Do you remember that bar that was out in the woods, Fred's?

- I don't know if that was around when I was down there.

- You ever see the movie Porkies?

- Yeah.

- It was like that.

When you drove up to it, it had neon, it was Fred's.

And they burned a couch in the backyard every Saturday night.

(Nathan laughing) I'm not even joking.

It was a fantastic place.

- I would've gone there.

I just don't think it was around when I was there.

- I'm guessing it's probably closed or else, yes.

You seem like the type (chuckling) that would've visited Fred's.

- They might've had a couch get outta control or something, 'cause I don't remember Fred's.

(Rob chuckling) - What did you do after you graduated?

- I went and worked for an AGCO dealer for 10 years.

I got hired on there to start a technology department for them, and they had multiple locations, so that grew quite rapidly.

- AGCO is a type of tractor?

- Yes, AGCO dealership.

- Not a very good type.

- Huh, come on.

- [Rob] They're not a sponsor, who cares.

(Nathan laughing) - So yeah, I worked for a Gleaner Massey dealer, took care of all their technology, and that was actually where I was introduced to Ag Leader.

I was an Ag Leader dealer for them on the technology side.

- But it was your job to put technology in a Gleaner combine?

- Yeah.

(Rob gasps) - I bet you earned your paycheck with that one.

- It's easier than you think.

(laughs) - So did you actually replace the Fred Flintstone feet to get it moving?

- Well, no, those were still there.

- [Rob] Okay, we love you Gleaner.

- But it steered itself.

(Rob laughing) - Okay, so you did that.

At what point did you transition over to Ag Leader?

- Last year, so 2022, 30th anniversary for Ag Leader, that's when I decided to transition over to them, became a territory manager for Illinois.

Been doing that all of last year.

- How has the year gone?

- Good, good.

- Are they happy with you?

- Well, I either have 'em all buffaloed, or I did something right, because- - You still have a job.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm managing the Eastern North America now.

- Probably be a few weeks before this airs.

You think you're still gonna be- - I hope so, I hope this goes really well, and they don't can me.

- Fingers, I can't...

I got the farmer hands.

I can't even cross my fingers anymore, (laughs) that's sad.

Take care of your body, kids.

Okay, let's talk about the technology in agriculture, because I don't think a lot of people out there watching even realize that when we're out in the fields, we don't steer our tractors anymore, so tell us about that tech.

- Yep, so specifically what we do, the technology into things, there's obviously GPS guidance, so farmers don't have to to drive anymore.

They have more time to be on their phones and- - [Rob] It's wonderful, especially with TikTok.

- Yeah.

- Because I mean, you can't be running the wheel and doing that with your phone.

- No, that's pretty hard.

- One or the other.

- Yep so, and then on top of that, we control the planters, the sprayers, we run yield monitors and combines, so we pretty well run the entire operation.

The farmer just sits in the seat, and occasionally has to turn the wheel to get it turned around.

- I mean, that's a broad overstatement I would say.

We do a few things.

- (laughs) Well, yeah.

Yep, I don't wanna take away from you, but- - It is fascinating, especially with the planters, because when I was growing up, you would take a planter out there, you knew you wanted say 35,000 seeds per acre, and the planter would plant 'em, and as long as you hit that goal, you were fine, didn't worry about it.

But what we found out is if the seeds are close together or far apart, we're losing yield, so now we want 'em, 35 is six inches apart, right?

- Yep.

- Exactly.

So we want them exactly, but we also wanna plant really fast, which makes it hard to do that.

It's amazing a company like you work for that has figured out that technology.

- Yeah, so there was hurdles that came along the way to make that as perfect as we could.

So spacing and singulation on corn is very important and then depth became an issue.

When you start going faster, you have to be able to control that depth in the ground also, so that's where hydraulic down force came from.

- Which I don't have yet.

- You should get that.

- Maybe we could work out a- - We'll talk later.

- A free deal?

- I don't know about free, but we can talk about it.

- Highly discounted deal.

(Nathan laughing) - Slightly.

- This stuff is expensive!

- It can be.

- No, it is!

- Well, yeah, it has its purpose though.

- This is where you say, "Well, it's only expensive "if it's not worth it, but it's worth it."

- It is worth it.

- I buy it, because it's worth it, because I want to do this all day and not really look behind me.

- It's the best investment a farmer can make and get a payback from.

- It is amazing, you can see that.

If you switch over to that technology, you can see how much money it does make compared to the old way that we did it.

It just makes sense, is that you're utilizing every single square quarter of an inch on that property that you can, and that's what you do.

- That's what we do.

That's our bread and butter.

- As you sit back as a tech guy, what is the most impressive thing that you guys have?

- I would say our planting products and then we just came out with RightSpot, so we're- - [Rob] The spraying thing.

- We're now controlling sprayers by the nozzle.

- [Rob] This is fascinating.

Tell us about that.

- So RightSpot is a PWM control.

- A what?

- A PWM.

- I don't even know what that means.

- Pulse width modulation valve.

- All right, no, now I'm gonna interrupt you first of all, because this is another thing.

(Nathan laughing) When you're spraying, that was a whole thing, is that water would come out the sprayer and that, and then y'all started pulsing it, why?

- Yeah, so what that does is it allows us to maintain a constant pressure on the boom.

And the reason we do that is we wanna maintain the appropriate droplet size for that spray to prevent drift and to get the appropriate coverage on the crop or on the ground.

- Yeah, that drift's a big deal.

- It is a big deal.

- Neighbors don't like it at all.

So now instead of when we're watching a sprayer, it's not this fanning, it's pulsing.

- It pulses, yeah.

- If we had B-roll, it'd look really cool.

- Yeah, yeah.

(laughs) - I really hope you brought some.

All right, I interrupted you, so go on with the RightSpot.

- So maintaining pressure, the appropriate pressure helps us keep the droplet size where it needs to be.

And then, it also gives us a much larger range of operation.

- [Rob] Why?

- Well, before when it was not done with the PWM control, you had a very small window of miles per hour that you could drive that sprayer.

You had to keep the right pressure for the tips, and you couldn't go in or out of that speed range.

So now, we've probably doubled, tripled that range, so guys can get more done in a day.

- So when we're spraying, you get to a place where you have to slow down.

That pressure has to slow down too.

- On a typical system, yes, that's what it would do.

- And it's crazy, because it has to happen (snaps) like that, so that we don't over spray or under spray, and you're figuring all that out.

- Yeah, our system just changes the way the nozzle pulses, and that's what controls the rate.

- [Rob] It's confusing.

- It is confusing.

There's a lot to it, but when you get in it, it's very simple.

The other big advantage to that is individual nozzle shutoff, so now a guy doesn't necessarily have to drive around his waterways.

He can drive through 'em if he has boundaries created.

- Well, you'd have to map 'em, right?

- You'd have to map that, yep.

- Okay, well that's an extra step- - That's a whole nother, yeah.

- Basically, so if you're driving like this, and you've got an object, a waterway, or your end row's like this, the sprayer comes up...

This is fantastic visuals, the sprayer comes up, and instead of over spraying half the boom, it's shutting off each nozzle as it gets to where it's already sprayed.

- Yes.

- And how does it know this?

- Based off boundaries and/or coverage that you've already been there.

- [Rob] But it's doing it with the- - GPS, yep.

- [Rob] Old Elon stuff, right?

- Well, not necessarily his, but yes, GPS.

- And they're just floating around up there in what, the satellite-tis-sphere is what they call it?

- I've never been up there, but that's what they tell me.

- Okay, it's fascinating.

- It is, it works.

- Whose satellites do you use, Russians'?

- Yeah, we do sometimes, yeah.

They consider that GLONASS.

- [Rob] The what?

- GLONASS is what the Russian constellation is.

- [Rob] They let you use- - Yeah, yeah.

- [Rob] Do we let 'em use ours?

- I don't know that.

- I mean, do you ask- - I don't ask that.

- Or do you hack into it?

- We have access to it, I think.

I don't know if it's hacked in or not.

- Oh, we have access.

(Nathan and Rob laughing) There's been a, I can think of twice, my entire farming career where I've had to stop the planter because of, I don't know, everything went out, the satellites and that, does that happen very often?

- No, it should not happen that often.

- What causes that?

- They can change some information in the way the data that rolls in, and sometimes we have to do updates to correct that.

- It is a little scary that if the satellites go out, I cannot plant my corn.

- Well, you should be able to.

We have backups in there for that.

Unless you just refuse to use your steering wheel, then I can't help you there.

- Well no, but the satellites are telling me how fast I'm going and when to drop the seed.

- That's true, that's true.

But we have backups in our system to be able to utilize radar, or you can actually put in a manual speed and keep planting if you absolutely have to.

- Honestly, I don't even know if I have radar on the tractor anymore.

- You might not.

A lot of people do not.

- Okay, do you like what you do?

- I love it, I love it.

This last year has been great.

- Now, I make fun, because I am a farmer.

I'm almost 50, and I'm considered a very young farmer.

Most farmers are a lot older.

Is your job mainly taking phone calls from old people going, "What's going on?"

- That was my previous job.

The job I'm in now, I take phone calls from TMs and dealers that take care of people such as yourself.

- Okay, did you used to, it was be like, all right, go down to the bottom, and there's a button that has a house, that's your home button, and you'd have to explain that five times before they actually hit it.

- I would and then- - And he would and he'd say, "I'm not home, I'm in my tractor."

- Yeah, it'd be a conversation where the guy would say, "That looks like a church instead of a house," so yeah, I had many conversations like that.

(Rob and Nathan chuckling) - Because I remember you have someone running your stuff, and you're trying to explain it to 'em that it's infuriating.

- Sometimes it can be.

(Nathan laughs) We've done some things to alleviate a lot of that on our end.

- [Rob] Like what?

- So we have remote support with Ag Leader.

That gives access for our dealers to actually look at the screen that the farmer has and be able to see what he's looking at, so it makes it a lot easier for them to walk them through those steps.

- Because he's probably way off, he or she, is probably way off at whatever.

That would be pretty invaluable.

So it's all linked up on the internet and stuff?

- Yeah, as long as they have an internet source in the cab, we can get in there and see what they're seeing.

- It's crazy to think about when you were growing up baling hay, we didn't have any of this stuff, and now it's amazing the technology inside that tractor cab is like nothing we even imagined, what's next?

- Ah, sky's the limit.

I mean, autonomy's been the talking point for the last few years, and I think that's the way things are going.

- [Rob] I don't think so.

- You don't think so?

- [Rob] No, I don't think so.

Do you wanna know why?

- Why is that?

It's because I can pay a person 20 bucks an hour to sit in that tractor and literally watch and make sure that nothing's plugging up behind me.

Because how many times have you worked at night and then you're in la la land and then you turn around, and you're like, "Oh shoot, "I've been dragging stocks for half a mile."

- (laughing) Yeah.

- Yeah, that's why autonomy...

But it's gonna have the cameras, right, so maybe you're not in the tractor, but you're watching from home.

- It's possible, they got a long ways to go.

- Okay, are you working on that?

- I am not personally, no, no.

I'm just now putting drives on our planter this year.

- What about the hover tractors?

- Like a hovercraft?

- Yeah.

- Haven't seen that.

- [Rob] Nothing?

- (laughing) Nothing like that.

- I feel like you're hiding something from me.

- That'd be great for compaction.

- We had this deal in the country called COVID.

I don't know if you ever heard of her.

- Yeah, once or twice.

- Yeah, so especially with the agriculture community, all of a sudden, everything stopped as far as receivers, technology, stuff like that.

How did Ag Leader handle that?

- Well, we have a bit of a step up I think, compared to some people, because the majority of our product is manufactured and produced in the US, so we were able to- - [Rob] No, I don't think we do that anymore.

- What's that, make stuff in the US?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Yeah, well Ag Leader's a little bit different when it comes to that.

We've been in a pretty good spot.

I'm not gonna say that the component shortage didn't affect us, 'cause it did, but we've been able to overcome that really quickly.

We're actually shipping everything that we've got in our portfolio up to a week to two weeks out right now.

- [Rob] That's not bad!

- So things can still be ordered and still get 'em by springtime.

- Do you have a auto steer on your motorcycle?

- I do not have auto steer on the motorcycle.

- You ever thought about it?

It'd be kinda cool, wouldn't it?

- It'd be cool, it would be.

- [Rob] What kind of bike do you have?

- Got a Kawasaki Ninja, a 1400.

- [Rob] Oh, I thought we were talking about real bikes.

- Yeah, I figured that was gonna get brought up.

(Rob and Nathan laughing) - Do you like it?

Do you like riding?

- Yeah, yeah we do, we usually go on a trip every year, either Road America or somewhere else.

We went all the way up to- - [Rob] Road America?

- Yeah, up in Wisconsin.

- [Rob] I don't know what that is.

- There's a road course up there.

We go watch the bike races every year, so it's a very, very cool place.

- You and your wife, Cynthia?

- Yep.

- And now do you guys have your own bikes, or is she riding, or are you riding, or how does that work?

- No, she rides with me.

- Do you ever let her drive?

- No, no I don't.

She wouldn't wanna do that either.

- Have you ever asked?

- Yeah, yeah.

That's another story.

- [Rob] Another story.

- Another time.

- [Rob] Okay.

(Rob and Nathan laugh) It's hard to explain why it's so much fun and freeing to ride motorcycles, isn't it?

- Yeah, it is.

It can be thrilling.

- [Rob] Do you have your license?

- Yeah.

- [Rob] Motorcycle license?

- Yeah, I haven't been driving illegally for 10 years.

- [Rob] I don't have it.

- You don't?

- No.

Well that's why we just do the back roads, literally, (Nathan laughing) because it takes like two days doesn't it, to get it?

- No, well I don't know about now, maybe now it does.

- Well, how'd you get yours?

- Down in Carbondale.

I just borrowed a buddy's bike and went and took the course at the DMV.

- I thought you had to go to IUCC for a day and take the course and all that stuff.

- That may have changed since then.

It's been a long time since I got it.

I barely passed it.

- Well yeah, D stands for a diploma.

- That's right, I got the job done.

- Don't tell people that I don't have my license at all.

- (laughs) I won't say anything.

- Okay, that's nice.

Well the thing about riding motorcycles is that when you're doing it, basically you have to focus on what you're doing, so it takes your brain, and it takes all the stuff that stresses you, it just pushes it out.

- It does, it does, you gotta pay attention though, especially in deer country where objects can come across the road at any point in time.

- You live in Dehendra?

- Dehinda.

- Dehinda?

- Dehinda, yeah.

- I think I took her to prom when I was a freshman, Dehinda.

- Yeah, is she nice?

- Not really.

(Nathan laughs) Where is that?

- It's just west of Peoria here about 40 minutes.

- Is it a very big?

- No no, very small town.

- [Rob] Has it got a Dollar Store?

- It has a general store.

- [Rob] What's that?

- That's just a old-timey general store and a post office, that is all that is in town.

- What do they sell at the general store?

- They got everything, everything- - Is it like a chain one or just Bob's Store?

- No, just Dehinda General Store.

- Okay.

- So that's it, that's all that's in town.

- That's not bad though, no bars?

- No bars.

- No churches?

- There's some churches, yeah, there's a church, fire department, things like that, the necessities.

- Okay, how many people live in said Burg?

- Yeah, I'll be honest with you, I'm not even sure.

- [Rob] Do they know?

- Probably not.

(Rob and Nathan chuckle) It probably changes daily.

- Is it a nice place to live?

- It is, it is very quiet out there.

- Okay, so for your next annual motorcycle trip, where are you gonna go?

- We're gonna go back to Road America this year, 'cause they just repaved the track.

- Oh, can you get out and really hammer down?

- We have rode on it, yeah.

- [Rob] Like fast?

- Ah, not as fast as we could have but enough.

- Because you're not driving a Harley, you probably can't go that fast.

- Yeah, you have to follow the Corvette's on the track when you're taking your street bike out there.

- So they can pull you?

- Yeah.

(Rob laughs) - Are you a bit of a gearhead?

- I am, I am, have been all my life.

- [Rob] Do you have a project in the garage?

- There has been a project in the garage for a long time.

I've got a '64 C10 that my great-grandfather bought new.

- [Rob] Really?

- Yeah, hauled pigs in it, and it's pretty cancered out, so it's definitely gonna be a big project when we get going on it.

- Like complete, do you have put a new motor in it?

- Yeah, I built a motor for it when I was in college, so the motor's in there, but the body and everything else needs to be done yet.

- You just wrap it with that serrano wrap, maybe spray paint it, you ever tried that?

- Vinyl wrap would make it look pretty good probably if I- - Think about if you put an Ag Leader, if they'll pay for the wrap on there.

- I have to talk to marketing about that.

That would be cool.

I'd probably do it.

- I know your CEO, him and I are pretty tight.

- Yeah, he's a nice guy.

- Yeah, I don't think he cares for me very much.

He doesn't like me, but he puts up with me.

- Ah, I think Al likes everybody.

- Really?

- Yeah, I really do.

(Rob and Nathan chuckle) Until you give him a reason not to.

- Yeah, it's an interesting company, because you're independent and agriculture is not anymore.

You got green, you got red, whatever Gleaner is.

You've got that, and they want to be their own thing.

But if I have a red tractor and a green combine, and I would never own a Gleaner, but I could still use Ag Leader in all that stuff.

- Across all those brands, that is what we do.

So we try to make the life of a farmer a little bit easier if he has a mixed fleet of equipment, that's where we come in and can bring some consistency to that.

- Do you ever meet people that have no idea with agriculture and try to explain what you do?

It's gotta be difficult.

- Yeah, it takes a while.

It's hard to do it in five minutes.

- You just point to your shirt?

- Yeah, or the website.

Go check the website out and then we can talk.

(Rob chuckles) - All right, well what's the future plans?

- For myself?

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna continue to work at Ag Leader doing what I'm doing right now.

- [Rob] That's actually not what Al said.

- Isn't it?

Oh boy.

- [Rob] Well, maybe that's for later.

- Maybe I'm looking for a job.

(laughs) - It might not hurt, you know what I'm saying?

- I plan on farming, whether it be part-time or something.

But, I'm planning on sticking around Ag Leader for quite some time.

- All right, sounds good.

Nathan Zimmerman from Dehinda, there's an N in it, Dehinda.

Dehinda, Illinois with the general store.

(Nathan and Rob laugh) Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

It's been a lot of fun.

- Appreciate you having us on here.

- Yeah, and I appreciate the education on ag technology, and hopefully everybody got the same thing.

So Nathan, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

(upbeat music)