December 4, 2024 • 37 mins
Welcome back to the War Against Weeds Podcast! This week we are joined by guests Jeremy Safranski (Director of Strategic Planning at CHS Inc.) and Mike Bjertness (Management at C-W Valley Co-op) to discuss the herbicide supply chain and their experiences in the United States.
You can find these two guests here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-bjertness-cca-0b404326a/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-safranski0312/
And the links they provided for more information:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Ikley (00:07):
Welcome back to the War Against Weeds Podcast. I'm
Joe Ikley, extension WeedScientist at North Dakota State
University. My co host today isSarah Lancaster at Kansas State
University. Sarah, what is goingon in Kansas?
Sarah Lancaster (00:23):
Just a beautiful fall day. We finally
got some rain in the weekscoming
Joe Ikley (00:27):
up, rain. Ah, we're, we're transitioning to the more
Jeremy Safranski (00:28):
Thanks. Thanks for having me today. So like you
solid stuff falling from the skythis week up here, at least at
West, you know, one of our, oneof our guests, is just south of
me. Was shaking his headvigorously, no, but it's saw it
out west, at least on on somepictures from our end, on
stations this morning. Butthat's not why we're here. And
(00:49):
we're not just here to talkweather, just because that's
what we do in agriculture. Butso we have two guests on today,
and we're going to basicallydiscuss some some things around
or details around the herbicidesupply chain. And so for that,
we got a couple of good guestson today. We're going to let
them introduce themselves, whothey work for and what they do.
said, Jeremy Safranski, SeniorDirector of our product
(01:10):
And so we're going to start withJeremy Safranski. Jeremy,
welcome.
portfolio, crop protectionproduct line. I work for CHS,
leading global agribusinesscooperative based in the United
(01:32):
States. We're a diversifiedsupply chain company within the
energy, agronomy, grains andfood segment business.
Joe Ikley (01:40):
All right. Thank you. And our other guest today is
Mike Bjertness. Mike, welcome tothe podcast.
Mike Bjertness (01:49):
Thanks, Joe. Thanks for inviting me as well.
My name is Mike Bjertness. I'mwith CW Valley Co Op based
inWolverton, Minnesota. We are alocally owned Co Op operating
right along the border of NorthDakota and Minnesota. And
Minnesota in southeastern NorthDakota and west central
Minnesota. Strive to be a fullservice Co Op. We have agronomy,
(02:12):
crop nutrition, grains, fuel.Try to be, try to be full
service and offer all inputsneeded for our our patrons,
Joe Ikley (02:23):
All right! And yeah, so some of the reasons we wanted
to have, kind of both of youguys on today is this whole
supply chain thing was probablynot in our daily, our daily
lexicon, until, really 2020, or2021, and then kind of came to a
point then when we startedhaving some issues, and that's
we're not going to discuss theissues of that year here, but
(02:45):
figured it'd be good to kind ofgo through what this looks like
on a daily or annual basis. Andyou two are both heavily
involved in at least a piece ofthat, with different businesses
and what you do at work.
Mike Bjertness (02:57):
One thing to note when it comes to
similarities in our answers isthat if you envision the product
supply chain, maybe in fourpieces, tech and manufacturing,
manufacturing, distribution andlogistics on Jeremy's side, or
CHSs side, myself as a retailer,and then the end at the farm
(03:18):
gate, the end user is thefarmer. We're the middle two
connected sections. Theconversation would be quite a
bit different if we were talkingbetween manufacturer and myself,
a little bit different betweenJeremy and maybe the end user.
If, if we had varying levels ofof varying degrees of of
(03:40):
connection, we probably noticeddifferent answers, but we work
very closely with our supplychain, including CHS, they're
very valuable supplier of ours,so I think we're pretty in tune.
Joe Ikley (03:58):
Yeah, that's kind of the reason we had both these
guys on at the same time as wewe have episodes where we talk
to the manufacturers and howdoes this product look? How do
you try and position thisproduct? And we, we just talked
about research and developmentof products recently. And then
we have farmers on and kind ofthe decisions they make. So
(04:18):
these, these two are we, we'vehad the conversations with the
the other two groups involved,as Mike kind of divvied it in
four different categories, andthese are the conduit, the
connectors. You know, how do weget from that discussion with
manufacturers to trying to killweeds? In our case. What I'm
kind of thinking of how we'llkind of go through this today is
(04:40):
maybe we'll start with what atypical calendar year looks like
on the distribution and retailside of things. Of maybe we'll
just start, we're recording inearly November, so you know
what's happening right now andwhat does the next 12 months
look like. And we'll start maybeJeremy with distribution, what
just what happens in your World.
Jeremy Safranski (05:02):
well, with what's happening right now,
there's a lot of ordering goingon and forecasting modeling for
what we're seeing witheverything going on today. So
we're making sure that we'retrying to on the off patent side
of things. We have to make surethat we get technical on vessels
before Chinese New Year happens.Chinese New Year this year in
(05:25):
2025 is January 29 that's abouttwo weeks earlier than it was
last year, and normally to haveit shipped over to the United
States, shipped inbound, toldand produced in the United
States, and basically shippedout to all of the retail
facilities in time for useseason. It would have to be
shipped out before Chinese NewYear. So that's what a lot of
(05:49):
our suppliers are in process ofright now. And we're we're in
that process right now offorecasting, making sure we're
modeling, trying to get in frontof everything ahead of time, to
get in front of this market andsee where we could see next
year's crop being, and if we'reseeing any shifts in markets and
so forth.
Joe Ikley (06:10):
Sarah, you looks like immediately, you had a follow up
Sarah Lancaster (06:13):
Don't take me to Vegas, because I have no
question.
poker face (laughs) so well.First off, I was wondering about
the Chinese New Year thing, butI assume that's just things kind
of shut down for a while, and ifyou don't get it before, then
you won't have it in time?
Jeremy Safranski (06:29):
Yeah, so normally, Chinese New Year is a
very big celebration in China.Of course, it's about a 14 day
celebration. Everything isbasically shut down there. So
they shut down. They have thatlarge celebration by the time
they get back. When you talkabout a 45 day lead time to put
it on a vessel, ship it to thewest coast or the East Coast,
(06:50):
depending on where they'regoing. Get it shipped inbound to
an inbound tolling facilitywithin the United States. You
got to add another 45 plus daysto ship inbound. Get it told,
get it, you know, shipped toanother retail facility that
just normally get past thatwindow of use season for us. So
that's just normally a rule ofthumb that we've used for quite
(07:12):
some time.
Sarah Lancaster (07:14):
What kind of things are you modeling and
forecasting acres for differentcrops? What else?
Jeremy Safranski (07:20):
Yeah, so we're definitely modeling acres for
different crops. What that shiftis, we're also modeling the
different uses for the differentover the top soybean treatments.
With the loss of Dicamba overthe top soybean treatments,
we're going to look at whatglufosinate and the potential
increase side of glufosinate andenlist would be for that over
the top treatment of soybeans.So that's going to be a big key
(07:42):
player for that going forward.As well as last year wasn't as
big of a soybean pre as we wereexpecting. How big of a corn pre
also did we have for, you know,during our corn fill timing,
which would have been, you know,summer fill timing. So how much
actually got filled in the tanksout in the country for bulk fill
(08:04):
and, you know, basically reverseengineer that reverse engineer
that backwards to see what wethink we have left to come in.
So
Joe Ikley (08:16):
Sarah and I just get busy modeling what weeds are
going to be an issue that's awhole another level that we
don't have to think about.
Jeremy Safranski (08:25):
Yeah, there's, there's going to be a pretty
big, drastic change in whatwe're seeing. We're seeing the
market with glufosinate alone.We saw two years ago be about 12
million gallons of totalglufosinate usage. This last
year, we're estimating that itgot up to about 17 million
gallons. And in 2025 ourpredictions are that it's going
(08:46):
to be somewhere around 22 to 23million gallons of glufosinate
usage. So another 25 pluspercent growth, especially with
the loss of Dicamba usage.
Joe Ikley (08:57):
Oh, it's going to be a lot of Product to Ship around
and move and get out onto thefield.
Jeremy Safranski (09:01):
Yeah.
Joe Ikley (09:03):
so, so Mike, what about on your end? So you know,
this time of year, I'm you'vekind of said you're full service
Co Op, so I'm guessing you'rewrapping up the year and
starting to think about nextyear. But want to hear it from
you.
Mike Bjertness (09:17):
They always kind of run together as we switch
gears as seasons change. Sowe're wrapping up harvest. We're
still doing fall fertility. Therain that we got recently is
freed up some of that sort alittle more. But on the
management side, we're going tomirror pretty closely to what
Jeremy was talking about, exceptin in a little different realm,
(09:40):
because we're trying toanticipate crop intentions for
2025 we have a pretty goodhandle on the weed pressure and
what to expect, but we're alsotrying to meet farmers and
develop preliminary agronomicplans and what products they
plan on using. So. Doing someforecasting there, and then
(10:01):
going out and and procuring aswe need to and and as it's
advantageous. Obviously, keep inmind that it needs to be early
enough that logistically we canget it in. But then there's some
other factors there too,providing flexibility for, say,
unknowns, pre plant orpreventive plant, different
(10:25):
weather conditions and marketchanges. You know, every year we
see some some acres, some swingacres, change march into April,
even into May, depending onweather and commodity markets.
So we have to anticipate alittle bit of that, but taking a
position early is usuallyadvantageous for us, as long as
(10:49):
we do it well.
Joe Ikley (10:52):
and you're probably also working on some of the
things that Jerry Jeremy hadmentioned. Kind of how much of
product X Do you still have inthe tank? And do you need to
order more, or do you need tofind a way to get rid of that
tank? I guess that's all part ofthe the equation right now.
Mike Bjertness (11:09):
It's a very dynamic process. So yeah, I've
been looking at that quite a bitlately, between intentions, like
I said, crop intentions, productuse, intentions, and then
forecasting. One thing that wehaven't been forced to pay
attention to so much until aboutCOVID Right after COVID is the
(11:32):
cost of money before now, youknow, if there was a X
percentage incentive to take inearly that always outweighed our
cost to money, and now that'scompletely flipped. So we have
to to make sure that it's, it'sprice advantageous, while,
keeping an eye on marketvolatility and either
(11:54):
appreciating or depreciatingvalue and product that we have
on the floor. So there's a wholenother level to it than there
was pre 2020 and it puts all themore emphasis on on accurate
forecasting and relationshipswith your suppliers.
Joe Ikley (12:11):
Yeah, I know when I'm thinking about things like,
well, we mentioned glufosinateonce already, but just the price
of that product in the lastcouple years, that's just that
can't be fun for either of youguys the way that's kind of
fluctuated over the past coupleyears and and just trying to
forecast out and make sure thatgets moved appropriately and
ordered at the correctquantities.
Mike Bjertness (12:32):
It's a lot more fun as the price goes up than
when it comes down when you haveinventory.
Joe Ikley (12:38):
So we mentioned, or couple times, something you
know, along the lines of newproducts. And so since it's
about what, 10 days ago now, wewe finally heard we got a
Liberty Ultra label. So that'swhat I'm just going to kind of
pick on here, just because it's,it's new and and that's probably
one you guys might both betrying to wrap your minds around
how you want to deal with thatproduct now as another well,
(13:03):
it's glufosinate, end useproduct, I guess is one way to
phrase it. But you know, howdoes a new product like that
play into some of thesemodelings and decisions at this
time of the year? Maybe we'llwork backwards with Mike and
then up to Jeremy.
Mike Bjertness (13:19):
That's actually been a conversation that we've
been having pretty intenselywithin our office lately and
with some reps. So what changesthat a little bit is the
plethora of generic options onthe market. I will argue that
that branded Liberty is is byfar superior because of the
surfactant package, and we'vehad great luck with it. We fully
(13:41):
intend to maintain the brandedoption. But one thing that
simplifies that is themanufacturer BASF, has opted to
stop production of 280 so thatdoes take one alternative out of
the market or out of the mix. Wedon't have to decide between
liberty, ultra liberty, 280 orsome of the generics we know,
(14:04):
especially like Jeremymentioned, usage is going to
continue going up. We expectmore, especially on the enlist
acre around our area. So we'retrying to forecast and read the,
read the tea leaves, on, on,what's going to happen. But
(14:25):
again, going back to thoseinternal discussions, deciding
which route we're going to takewhen it comes to a product, once
we once, we decide that the restof the pieces kind of fall into
place, but we have to decipherour starting point.
Joe Ikley (14:41):
And how about, how about you, Jeremy, how does that
kind of play into what's goingon?
Jeremy Safranski (14:46):
Yean, to sort of compliment What, what Mike
was saying on, on a few of thosethings we've been doing the
research with, you know, LibertyUltra as well, versus their old
racemic formulation. And. Sowhen you look at the two of
them, you know, comparable andstuff like that. For us in a
distribution company, it, it isa huge savings with a with a lot
(15:11):
of different instances, becausewhen you go from a 32 ounce use
rate to a 24 ounce use rate, youare going to save, you know, you
know, packaging materials,repackaging and so forth going
forward. So, you know, it savesour trucks there's less loads
all of the above to be able todeliver in a shorter window, and
we're getting into a shorterwindow now, because they did not
(15:34):
get the new label quite as earlyas they expected. So it did come
in a little bit later. And nowI'm looking at state
registrations and so forth. Andsometimes state registrations
can dip into, you know, excessof six plus weeks. So we're
looking into probably a q1shipment time frame on liberty
(15:57):
Ultra with a lot of that. That'sa lot of shipping to hand have
in a short window of time, soanytime that you can reduce that
from 32 ounces rate to a 24ounce use rate and actually
increase the efficacy of of thatproduct, that's probably really
good for the end user and theretailer and distribution
(16:20):
channel and everybody along theway. So we look at that as as
good news. But it does throw alittle more wrench into our
wrench, into the into the cogsfor us, because we have to do
some conversion. Now, when westart looking at how much is
BASF breaking in with imports onL-glufosinate versus, you know,
(16:42):
the old formulation, and soforth. And, you know, with
forecasting and so forth, youhave to take that extra
conversion into into a factorwhen you start looking at your
forecasting, modeling and soforth. So,
Joe Ikley (16:57):
so maybe, maybe along those lines, I think it might be
interesting as you're we canpick on that product or another
product. Doesn't matter, Iguess. But as you're kind of
looking at a product and and howyou want to bring it in and chip
it around to the differentretail partners or warehouses,
how do you figure out thebreakdown of things like bulk
tanks or mini bulks or cases?
Jeremy Safranski (17:18):
Yeah. So, I mean, we go off of, you know,
mainly historic numbers is whatwe we've used. We go off of
previous year history and a fiveyear average kind of on, on
what's placed out there withbulk forces, tube buys and totes
and repairs. So legitimately,what still makes up the majority
(17:40):
of our business, and 50% of itis sold the two by two enhanced.
It all reliable. You know, fivegallon case, 50% of our business
is in a five gallon case. Thatmay shift in different areas.
You get into the Corn Belt,where it's very, very heavily
predominant corn freeze that mayshift more than where we're at
(18:06):
in or get further into the tradeterritory, into the wheat market
and sugar beets and so forth.It's, you know, for us, it's in
that five gallon jug. But sothat makes up about probably 50%
of your business. Third of it isis bulk, and that ship direct,
you know, it's round up, itglyphosate, soybean PREs and so
(18:30):
forth. And then the balance ofwhat's left is, you know, mini
bulks or totes and repackcontainers and any other size
performed that would be selling.You would be selling a 30 or 30
gallon drum, 55 gallon drum, andso on.
Joe Ikley (18:49):
and Mike, what about on your end?
Mike Bjertness (18:50):
I'm going to echo what Jeremy said. I really
comb through historical salesdata thing, primarily on the
prior one to the past five. Youknow, obviously different
products with different userates dictate what size. So if
we look at the acre treated, wecan start making decisions on
(19:13):
package package sizes. And it's,it's a geographical decision
too, because even within ourtrade area, trade territory, we
can see, say, on the easternend, guys are going to be using
higher rates of corn rather thansome of their their sugar beet
(19:34):
herbicides. You know, we'reselling nortron In 250 gallon
cages to some guys where others,just a few boxes will suffice.
So looking geographically andthen based on historical sales
data, that's how we how wedetermine our our package size,
mix. And usually we get pretty,pretty close. But I do like when
(19:57):
guys top up on on two and ahalfs To make sure the bulk
tanks are empty.
Sarah Lancaster (20:03):
So you were asking about package sizes, and
that made me think aboutformulation types. And I kind of
went back to when I was teachingundergrad Weed Science in a past
life and talking about thebenefits of different type of
like liquid formulations versusdry formulations. And students
are always like, Well, why don'twe package more stuff in dry
(20:25):
formulations? And I guess I wasjust curious to let you guys
talk about those differences andformulations and how you view
them, and you know, just liquidsversus dries in terms of
handling and your preferencesand that kind of thing. Does
that make sense?
Joe Ikley (20:40):
I think so. May want to start with Mike on that one,
since while they may be drivenby the end user in their
preference,
Mike Bjertness (20:52):
it's absolutely driven by the end user their
preference and theircapabilities of mixing what
their equipment dictates. Havingcut my teeth in a sprayer and
water truck, I can tell you thatI don't look incredibly favor
favorably upon a lot of dryformulations when it comes to
easy use, pre formulated liquidsare always preferable. In fact,
(21:16):
you know, years ago, I washearing about a dry formulation
of glyphosate. And how it wasgoing to transform our our
warehouses, instead of bulktanks, we were gonna have 50
pound bags that would do some somuch more that never came to
fruition. And I really think asas we progress, it seems like
more things are, are progressingto a liquid formulation and and
(21:42):
it's it's end user, and itsusability. Dry formulations just
are not as easy as as liquids inany way, shape or form.
Joe Ikley (21:51):
Yeah, I know, especially in gonna be similar
in many areas. But ourgeography, I think we're getting
groundwater in June. It's stillin the 30 to 40 degree range,
and so getting those dries todissolve is a major time issue
for us. With some of our coldwater we're pulling out of the
(22:11):
ground.
Mike Bjertness (22:13):
a hot water heater in a water truck is
nothing anybody wants,
Joe Ikley (22:19):
even those those on demand heaters, they it's a much
smaller hose size than what wewant to be pumping into a
sprayer. So, Jeremy, what aboutfrom your end? There's, there's
formulation type of questions,
Jeremy Safranski (22:32):
yeah, so, I mean, it's very similar to
Mike's, Mike's opinion it, it isall dictated from the end user.
And if you know they're havingmixing capabilities and so forth
in their sprayers. That allcomes back up to us, and it does
seem like no matter how we lookat it, liquid formulations, when
your handling it around in yourwarehouses, they're just they
(22:56):
handle better, they sit betteron a pellet, a 50 pound bag
doesn't, you know, a box of afive gallon box doesn't slide
off, as good as a 50 pound bagslides off, and then it slides
off, and then it rips on thecorner. And then you have, you
drag it halfway across yourwarehouse, and you have to have
somebody sweep it up and disposeof it properly with the right
(23:19):
disposal procedures and soforth. So, you know, when you
look at it from that point ofview too, it just always does
seem like the liquid formulationis easier handling and so forth,
with that as well, too. So yeah,to dictate and and basically
comment the same way the enduser, and it does seem like it's
an easier handling facility,handling as well, too.
Joe Ikley (23:42):
Feel like Sarah, you and I and our all of our weed
science colleagues might be theones who prefer dry, in many
cases, just because we can overorder and we know that stuff
will store forever. Dry Atrazineis a lot easier to mix than what
we're doing than resuspending afive year old jug. So some of
(24:07):
the other questions I had heregonna switch gears a little bit.
And and Sarah, maybe you havethought of a different example
along the way, but so we havetalked a bit about modeling and
going back on historicalrecords. And so the one that I
had brought up and posed to youguys, and the written questions
was, was basically, I'm thinkingabout paraquat in North Dakota.
(24:27):
For us, we're we're typically anAugust type of market. Uses it
to desiccate our crops, andSarah and I want to kill weeds.
And so maybe one of these days,people will listen to us, and
we'll shift in our geography toa burn spring burn down market.
You know how? How would thatplay into the typical cadence of
(24:48):
how you guys are managingthings? And maybe we'll start
with Jeremy on this one, andthen work back down to Mike.
Jeremy Safranski (24:53):
Yeah. So there's probably two parts to
that question. The first partwould be number one is pair.
Quite actually, in the country.So if paraquats in the country,
and we can move it from downsouth to up north, and there's a
little bit of that excesssupply, or we have some safety
stock and so forth that we canmove to North Dakota from, let's
(25:15):
just say Texas, for instance,because they have a pretty large
burn down run in Texas ofparaquat in the spring of the
year, and we can move it all theway up to North Dakota. Not that
huge of a deal. You know, fiveto 10 days probably, you know,
to put some wheels underneathit, get it all the way up north,
put a few truckloads under it.And just definitely not a big
(25:35):
deal. The second part of thatquestion would be, if it's not
in the country, so, and that's athat's a big deal. So if you're
bringing in paraquat, and it's45 days, if you're shipping it
from, you know, China, India,wherever it's being the
technical is being produced,then it has to come over. Most
paraquat is produced andbasically sent over as a
(26:01):
finished good there's a couplethings they add to it when it
gets over to the United States.So you're probably not tolling a
huge amount into the UnitedStates, but there is still some
added time frame that you'relooking at there. But if there
is technical into the UnitedStates, and you have to shift a
few things at a tolling facilitythat does take time. So then
(26:24):
you're looking at two to threeweeks to shift some tolling
lines that are available atdifferent tolling facilities, to
shift products around. So I kindof answered that in a two part
question, so I hope that kind ofanswers that.
Sarah Lancaster (26:40):
I'm wondering if we should clarify for the
listeners, when you say tollingfacility. Jeremy, can you
explain that a little on that?
Jeremy Safranski (26:48):
Yeah, so I can clarify, for tolling facility,
how we refer to that as it's,it's a facility that's, you
know, basically, will publicly,will publicly manufacture
technical into end goods for aspecific company. So whatever
company that is, they'll bringin technical product from comes
(27:13):
in as technical product fromChina, India, Argentina, any of
those type of countries. They'llship it in, bring it in. They'll
mix it in batches the proper waythat it needs to be mixed to put
it into suspension, and it'llcome out as end goods, and it'll
have the perfect label in thetote, in the two by two and a
(27:34):
half gallon jug and boxed on apallet, and shows up at your
doorstep through one of Mike'strucks or pick it up out of his
warehouse, so.
Joe Ikley (27:46):
And, yeah, so, Mike, what on your end? I mean, we can
use paraquat or a differentexample. You've gone got this
forecast and all of a sudden,you know, if you want to get,
oh, we'll stick with Paraquat.You want to get it in May rather
than August. You know, how doesthat kind of look in your world.
Mike Bjertness (28:03):
I called Jeremy. You know you Jeremy said it
best, and he's going to have amuch better handle on on the
upstream processes that'll getthat kind of quantity here. It's
always something that we'recognizant of as larger volume
products shift is theavailability and the
(28:25):
availability in time. I thinkI'd be accurate in saying that
there would probably beheartburn for one to two years
if that were a trend lineshifting that type of quantity
to a different time period, butthe market would resolve itself
pretty quick. So it's alwayssomething that that we keep in
the back of our minds, optionsor possibilities that might
(28:48):
happen throughout the season andand have some idea on how to
handle that, or alternatives,but we rely on on the upstream
distribution and manufacturingnetworks to help us through
that.
Joe Ikley (29:01):
So one commonality I'm hearing is something I
always tell my students thateven though, in our case, we're
working with weeds or work withproducts, this is still a people
business. Still have to havethose connections to grease the
gears and get things moving.
Mike Bjertness (29:17):
Very, very true. The Ag industry is very much a
relationship driven industry,and I think the trials that
we've gone through in the lastfour years accentuate that. So
it's it's really in buildingthose relationships and who you
build them with and how youtreat them,
Jeremy Safranski (29:39):
yeah, making it through COVID In the last two
years, or the two years of COVIDthat we had, I think, made us
better as an industry, andunderstanding that we needed to
be better communicators as anentire industry in depending
upon one another back and forth.So that did help us through some
of these things. From tryingtimes, is how I word it. So
Sarah Lancaster (30:04):
I guess, as we think about, you know, I think
especially somebody like you,Mike, you guys, have to choose
kind of what you're going tokeep in inventory, who you're
going to work with. How do youhandle, you know, maybe customer
preferences, or your owncompany, preferences for like
branded pre mixed productsversus buying off brand straight
(30:29):
goods and kind of tank mixingthings. How does that? How do
those options influence yourbusiness? Does that make sense?
Mike Bjertness (30:37):
It does. And I think that's a two part question
between pre mix and straightgoods, and then branded and
generic. And the way I woulddescribe it, as it comes down to
your business model, how youwant to position yourself, how
you want to present yourself as,as purely branded, purely
generic, from a cost standpoint,or or a hybrid model of both,
(31:01):
and we've adopted a hybrid modelof both. We still sell
predominantly branded productbecause we find a lot of merit
in the R and D throughmanufacturers, the support the
backside, support therelationships, and in a lot of
instances, those products areeither not available in an off,
(31:26):
Pat patent alternative, or quitea few instances, or they're
competitive enough where we canposition them correctly. I
haven't looked lately at thebreakdown between our branded
and generic as to exactpercentages. And then you have
to take into consideration, youknow, are you looking at dollar
(31:47):
volume or volume, physicalvolume? Because there is a
differentiation there. But whenit comes to that mix, I feel
like we've fallen into a prettygood rhythm of what our
customers are looking for, howwe want to present ourselves as
a company, and the targetaudience that we have. And then
(32:09):
when it comes to the pre mix andstraight goods, it really comes
down to the geographic fit tothe pre mix. We've seen a
handful of them out there thatcome out and they're presented
as the next easiest option, butthe ratios don't fit our
geography well at all. Theyeither either have way too high
(32:30):
components of some or way toolow of others, so we end up
spiking some in there are thereare a handful of very good
options when it comes to premixes, but we're, we're
skeptical of them. We'll vetthem pretty hard before we bring
them in and and start sellingfull full speed, or, you know,
(32:51):
full throttle on them.
Joe Ikley (32:53):
Yeah Sarah You should know some of that I'm always the
problem child when we do thesemulti state research trials,
because like, Nope, can't usethat pre mix up here.
Sarah Lancaster (33:05):
Even here, like, I don't want to sound like
I'm whining, but, like, a lot ofthings in the agronomy world are
here for the I states, right?And so even Kansas, we're kind
of the, you know, in some ways,fringe acres for corn and
soybeans. And so a lot of times,yeah, our eaters, our weed
spectrum is different, and so wejust need something slightly
(33:27):
different than what the theIowa, Illinois folks are driving
the market towards.
Mike Bjertness (33:35):
PH has come into play for us quite a bit when it
comes to those pre mixes. Youknow, our average is between a
7.8 and an 8.1 pH. So it'scompletely different spectrum
that we're working in comparedto the I states.
Joe Ikley (33:55):
It is an annual conversation I get to have
during protocol season withcompanies when they want a nice,
tidy national trial, the samefive to 10 treatments. I'm like,
your atrazine rate is threetimes what we even sniff at. And
then I know that's kind ofgeared more towards Mike, but I
(34:15):
don't know, Jeremy, if you hadany kind of thoughts around that
that question is that Sarah hadposed.
Jeremy Safranski (34:22):
yeah. So, I mean, it's, I would, you know,
be very similar in Mike'sresponse to it. A lot of it has
to be, you know, vetted out, andit has to be geared towards your
specific area. So, you know, I,I did run a facility up in
northern, North Dakota for awhile with CHS, and I always ran
(34:45):
into some pre mix issues with acanola rotation. A lot of the
pre mixes weren't designed forcanola rotation, and so I had
to, you know, look at that anddo a lot of separation of that
to make sure that I could getback to a canola rotation. And
I'm sure Mike's in the samesituation with a with a sugar
beet rotation, to get back tosome of those pre mixes that
(35:07):
that are out there. So they'regood in a lot of ways, for ease
of use and so forth, for thefarmers. And that makes it
easier for some of us as well tothere's one single product. It's
easy to ship. It's easy to getout the door. But again, right?
You have to do what'sagronomically right for your
farmers as well. So.
Joe Ikley (35:29):
All right, well, we are coming up close to the hour
so and we kind of got throughthe list. So kind of what we do
want to do is give you both kindof an opportunity, if we always,
if you're on social media, wantto plug yourself, we can provide
links, or if you have a just thecompany website, just so people
can kind of find out moreinformation about the places
(35:51):
that you work. And maybe we'llgo ahead and start with Mike on
this one.
Mike Bjertness (35:56):
Yeah, we're available on Facebook and also
our website, cwvalley.com,
Jeremy Safranski (36:02):
yeah. So you can find information on company,
CHS at www.CHSinc.com, or youcan find myself on LinkedIn if
you search my name.
Mike Bjertness (36:16):
I'm on LinkedIn too. forgot that.
Joe Ikley (36:18):
All right. And with that, we're going to wrap up
this episode. Thank thelisteners as always, and we'll
catch you next time on the Waragainst Weeds Podcast.
Sarah Lancaster (36:33):
Thanks for listening to the war against
weeds podcast. We appreciateyour listening. We appreciate
support from the north centralIPM center, and we appreciate
the collaboration with the CropProtection Network. At crop
protection network.org you canfind the war against weeds
podcast as well as otherpodcasts and a variety of other
(36:55):
information related to cropprotection. Thanks again for
listening, and we hope to seeyou next time you.
Welcome back to the War Against Weeds Podcast. I'm
Joe Ikley, extension WeedScientist at North Dakota State
University. My co host today isSarah Lancaster at Kansas State
University. Sarah, what is goingon in Kansas?
Sarah Lancaster (00:23):
Just a beautiful fall day. We finally
got some rain in the weekscoming
Joe Ikley (00:27):
up, rain. Ah, we're, we're transitioning to the more
Jeremy Safranski (00:28):
Thanks. Thanks for having me today. So like you
solid stuff falling from the skythis week up here, at least at
West, you know, one of our, oneof our guests, is just south of
me. Was shaking his headvigorously, no, but it's saw it
out west, at least on on somepictures from our end, on
stations this morning. Butthat's not why we're here. And
(00:49):
we're not just here to talkweather, just because that's
what we do in agriculture. Butso we have two guests on today,
and we're going to basicallydiscuss some some things around
or details around the herbicidesupply chain. And so for that,
we got a couple of good guestson today. We're going to let
them introduce themselves, whothey work for and what they do.
said, Jeremy Safranski, SeniorDirector of our product
(01:10):
And so we're going to start withJeremy Safranski. Jeremy,
welcome.
portfolio, crop protectionproduct line. I work for CHS,
leading global agribusinesscooperative based in the United
(01:32):
States. We're a diversifiedsupply chain company within the
energy, agronomy, grains andfood segment business.
Joe Ikley (01:40):
All right. Thank you. And our other guest today is
Mike Bjertness. Mike, welcome tothe podcast.
Mike Bjertness (01:49):
Thanks, Joe. Thanks for inviting me as well.
My name is Mike Bjertness. I'mwith CW Valley Co Op based
inWolverton, Minnesota. We are alocally owned Co Op operating
right along the border of NorthDakota and Minnesota. And
Minnesota in southeastern NorthDakota and west central
Minnesota. Strive to be a fullservice Co Op. We have agronomy,
(02:12):
crop nutrition, grains, fuel.Try to be, try to be full
service and offer all inputsneeded for our our patrons,
Joe Ikley (02:23):
All right! And yeah, so some of the reasons we wanted
to have, kind of both of youguys on today is this whole
supply chain thing was probablynot in our daily, our daily
lexicon, until, really 2020, or2021, and then kind of came to a
point then when we startedhaving some issues, and that's
we're not going to discuss theissues of that year here, but
(02:45):
figured it'd be good to kind ofgo through what this looks like
on a daily or annual basis. Andyou two are both heavily
involved in at least a piece ofthat, with different businesses
and what you do at work.
Mike Bjertness (02:57):
One thing to note when it comes to
similarities in our answers isthat if you envision the product
supply chain, maybe in fourpieces, tech and manufacturing,
manufacturing, distribution andlogistics on Jeremy's side, or
CHSs side, myself as a retailer,and then the end at the farm
(03:18):
gate, the end user is thefarmer. We're the middle two
connected sections. Theconversation would be quite a
bit different if we were talkingbetween manufacturer and myself,
a little bit different betweenJeremy and maybe the end user.
If, if we had varying levels ofof varying degrees of of
(03:40):
connection, we probably noticeddifferent answers, but we work
very closely with our supplychain, including CHS, they're
very valuable supplier of ours,so I think we're pretty in tune.
Joe Ikley (03:58):
Yeah, that's kind of the reason we had both these
guys on at the same time as wewe have episodes where we talk
to the manufacturers and howdoes this product look? How do
you try and position thisproduct? And we, we just talked
about research and developmentof products recently. And then
we have farmers on and kind ofthe decisions they make. So
(04:18):
these, these two are we, we'vehad the conversations with the
the other two groups involved,as Mike kind of divvied it in
four different categories, andthese are the conduit, the
connectors. You know, how do weget from that discussion with
manufacturers to trying to killweeds? In our case. What I'm
kind of thinking of how we'llkind of go through this today is
(04:40):
maybe we'll start with what atypical calendar year looks like
on the distribution and retailside of things. Of maybe we'll
just start, we're recording inearly November, so you know
what's happening right now andwhat does the next 12 months
look like. And we'll start maybeJeremy with distribution, what
just what happens in your World.
Jeremy Safranski (05:02):
well, with what's happening right now,
there's a lot of ordering goingon and forecasting modeling for
what we're seeing witheverything going on today. So
we're making sure that we'retrying to on the off patent side
of things. We have to make surethat we get technical on vessels
before Chinese New Year happens.Chinese New Year this year in
(05:25):
2025 is January 29 that's abouttwo weeks earlier than it was
last year, and normally to haveit shipped over to the United
States, shipped inbound, toldand produced in the United
States, and basically shippedout to all of the retail
facilities in time for useseason. It would have to be
shipped out before Chinese NewYear. So that's what a lot of
(05:49):
our suppliers are in process ofright now. And we're we're in
that process right now offorecasting, making sure we're
modeling, trying to get in frontof everything ahead of time, to
get in front of this market andsee where we could see next
year's crop being, and if we'reseeing any shifts in markets and
so forth.
Joe Ikley (06:10):
Sarah, you looks like immediately, you had a follow up
Sarah Lancaster (06:13):
Don't take me to Vegas, because I have no
question.
poker face (laughs) so well.First off, I was wondering about
the Chinese New Year thing, butI assume that's just things kind
of shut down for a while, and ifyou don't get it before, then
you won't have it in time?
Jeremy Safranski (06:29):
Yeah, so normally, Chinese New Year is a
very big celebration in China.Of course, it's about a 14 day
celebration. Everything isbasically shut down there. So
they shut down. They have thatlarge celebration by the time
they get back. When you talkabout a 45 day lead time to put
it on a vessel, ship it to thewest coast or the East Coast,
(06:50):
depending on where they'regoing. Get it shipped inbound to
an inbound tolling facilitywithin the United States. You
got to add another 45 plus daysto ship inbound. Get it told,
get it, you know, shipped toanother retail facility that
just normally get past thatwindow of use season for us. So
that's just normally a rule ofthumb that we've used for quite
(07:12):
some time.
Sarah Lancaster (07:14):
What kind of things are you modeling and
forecasting acres for differentcrops? What else?
Jeremy Safranski (07:20):
Yeah, so we're definitely modeling acres for
different crops. What that shiftis, we're also modeling the
different uses for the differentover the top soybean treatments.
With the loss of Dicamba overthe top soybean treatments,
we're going to look at whatglufosinate and the potential
increase side of glufosinate andenlist would be for that over
the top treatment of soybeans.So that's going to be a big key
(07:42):
player for that going forward.As well as last year wasn't as
big of a soybean pre as we wereexpecting. How big of a corn pre
also did we have for, you know,during our corn fill timing,
which would have been, you know,summer fill timing. So how much
actually got filled in the tanksout in the country for bulk fill
(08:04):
and, you know, basically reverseengineer that reverse engineer
that backwards to see what wethink we have left to come in.
So
Joe Ikley (08:16):
Sarah and I just get busy modeling what weeds are
going to be an issue that's awhole another level that we
don't have to think about.
Jeremy Safranski (08:25):
Yeah, there's, there's going to be a pretty
big, drastic change in whatwe're seeing. We're seeing the
market with glufosinate alone.We saw two years ago be about 12
million gallons of totalglufosinate usage. This last
year, we're estimating that itgot up to about 17 million
gallons. And in 2025 ourpredictions are that it's going
(08:46):
to be somewhere around 22 to 23million gallons of glufosinate
usage. So another 25 pluspercent growth, especially with
the loss of Dicamba usage.
Joe Ikley (08:57):
Oh, it's going to be a lot of Product to Ship around
and move and get out onto thefield.
Jeremy Safranski (09:01):
Yeah.
Joe Ikley (09:03):
so, so Mike, what about on your end? So you know,
this time of year, I'm you'vekind of said you're full service
Co Op, so I'm guessing you'rewrapping up the year and
starting to think about nextyear. But want to hear it from
you.
Mike Bjertness (09:17):
They always kind of run together as we switch
gears as seasons change. Sowe're wrapping up harvest. We're
still doing fall fertility. Therain that we got recently is
freed up some of that sort alittle more. But on the
management side, we're going tomirror pretty closely to what
Jeremy was talking about, exceptin in a little different realm,
(09:40):
because we're trying toanticipate crop intentions for
2025 we have a pretty goodhandle on the weed pressure and
what to expect, but we're alsotrying to meet farmers and
develop preliminary agronomicplans and what products they
plan on using. So. Doing someforecasting there, and then
(10:01):
going out and and procuring aswe need to and and as it's
advantageous. Obviously, keep inmind that it needs to be early
enough that logistically we canget it in. But then there's some
other factors there too,providing flexibility for, say,
unknowns, pre plant orpreventive plant, different
(10:25):
weather conditions and marketchanges. You know, every year we
see some some acres, some swingacres, change march into April,
even into May, depending onweather and commodity markets.
So we have to anticipate alittle bit of that, but taking a
position early is usuallyadvantageous for us, as long as
(10:49):
we do it well.
Joe Ikley (10:52):
and you're probably also working on some of the
things that Jerry Jeremy hadmentioned. Kind of how much of
product X Do you still have inthe tank? And do you need to
order more, or do you need tofind a way to get rid of that
tank? I guess that's all part ofthe the equation right now.
Mike Bjertness (11:09):
It's a very dynamic process. So yeah, I've
been looking at that quite a bitlately, between intentions, like
I said, crop intentions, productuse, intentions, and then
forecasting. One thing that wehaven't been forced to pay
attention to so much until aboutCOVID Right after COVID is the
(11:32):
cost of money before now, youknow, if there was a X
percentage incentive to take inearly that always outweighed our
cost to money, and now that'scompletely flipped. So we have
to to make sure that it's, it'sprice advantageous, while,
keeping an eye on marketvolatility and either
(11:54):
appreciating or depreciatingvalue and product that we have
on the floor. So there's a wholenother level to it than there
was pre 2020 and it puts all themore emphasis on on accurate
forecasting and relationshipswith your suppliers.
Joe Ikley (12:11):
Yeah, I know when I'm thinking about things like,
well, we mentioned glufosinateonce already, but just the price
of that product in the lastcouple years, that's just that
can't be fun for either of youguys the way that's kind of
fluctuated over the past coupleyears and and just trying to
forecast out and make sure thatgets moved appropriately and
ordered at the correctquantities.
Mike Bjertness (12:32):
It's a lot more fun as the price goes up than
when it comes down when you haveinventory.
Joe Ikley (12:38):
So we mentioned, or couple times, something you
know, along the lines of newproducts. And so since it's
about what, 10 days ago now, wewe finally heard we got a
Liberty Ultra label. So that'swhat I'm just going to kind of
pick on here, just because it's,it's new and and that's probably
one you guys might both betrying to wrap your minds around
how you want to deal with thatproduct now as another well,
(13:03):
it's glufosinate, end useproduct, I guess is one way to
phrase it. But you know, howdoes a new product like that
play into some of thesemodelings and decisions at this
time of the year? Maybe we'llwork backwards with Mike and
then up to Jeremy.
Mike Bjertness (13:19):
That's actually been a conversation that we've
been having pretty intenselywithin our office lately and
with some reps. So what changesthat a little bit is the
plethora of generic options onthe market. I will argue that
that branded Liberty is is byfar superior because of the
surfactant package, and we'vehad great luck with it. We fully
(13:41):
intend to maintain the brandedoption. But one thing that
simplifies that is themanufacturer BASF, has opted to
stop production of 280 so thatdoes take one alternative out of
the market or out of the mix. Wedon't have to decide between
liberty, ultra liberty, 280 orsome of the generics we know,
(14:04):
especially like Jeremymentioned, usage is going to
continue going up. We expectmore, especially on the enlist
acre around our area. So we'retrying to forecast and read the,
read the tea leaves, on, on,what's going to happen. But
(14:25):
again, going back to thoseinternal discussions, deciding
which route we're going to takewhen it comes to a product, once
we once, we decide that the restof the pieces kind of fall into
place, but we have to decipherour starting point.
Joe Ikley (14:41):
And how about, how about you, Jeremy, how does that
kind of play into what's goingon?
Jeremy Safranski (14:46):
Yean, to sort of compliment What, what Mike
was saying on, on a few of thosethings we've been doing the
research with, you know, LibertyUltra as well, versus their old
racemic formulation. And. Sowhen you look at the two of
them, you know, comparable andstuff like that. For us in a
distribution company, it, it isa huge savings with a with a lot
(15:11):
of different instances, becausewhen you go from a 32 ounce use
rate to a 24 ounce use rate, youare going to save, you know, you
know, packaging materials,repackaging and so forth going
forward. So, you know, it savesour trucks there's less loads
all of the above to be able todeliver in a shorter window, and
we're getting into a shorterwindow now, because they did not
(15:34):
get the new label quite as earlyas they expected. So it did come
in a little bit later. And nowI'm looking at state
registrations and so forth. Andsometimes state registrations
can dip into, you know, excessof six plus weeks. So we're
looking into probably a q1shipment time frame on liberty
(15:57):
Ultra with a lot of that. That'sa lot of shipping to hand have
in a short window of time, soanytime that you can reduce that
from 32 ounces rate to a 24ounce use rate and actually
increase the efficacy of of thatproduct, that's probably really
good for the end user and theretailer and distribution
(16:20):
channel and everybody along theway. So we look at that as as
good news. But it does throw alittle more wrench into our
wrench, into the into the cogsfor us, because we have to do
some conversion. Now, when westart looking at how much is
BASF breaking in with imports onL-glufosinate versus, you know,
(16:42):
the old formulation, and soforth. And, you know, with
forecasting and so forth, youhave to take that extra
conversion into into a factorwhen you start looking at your
forecasting, modeling and soforth. So,
Joe Ikley (16:57):
so maybe, maybe along those lines, I think it might be
interesting as you're we canpick on that product or another
product. Doesn't matter, Iguess. But as you're kind of
looking at a product and and howyou want to bring it in and chip
it around to the differentretail partners or warehouses,
how do you figure out thebreakdown of things like bulk
tanks or mini bulks or cases?
Jeremy Safranski (17:18):
Yeah. So, I mean, we go off of, you know,
mainly historic numbers is whatwe we've used. We go off of
previous year history and a fiveyear average kind of on, on
what's placed out there withbulk forces, tube buys and totes
and repairs. So legitimately,what still makes up the majority
(17:40):
of our business, and 50% of itis sold the two by two enhanced.
It all reliable. You know, fivegallon case, 50% of our business
is in a five gallon case. Thatmay shift in different areas.
You get into the Corn Belt,where it's very, very heavily
predominant corn freeze that mayshift more than where we're at
(18:06):
in or get further into the tradeterritory, into the wheat market
and sugar beets and so forth.It's, you know, for us, it's in
that five gallon jug. But sothat makes up about probably 50%
of your business. Third of it isis bulk, and that ship direct,
you know, it's round up, itglyphosate, soybean PREs and so
(18:30):
forth. And then the balance ofwhat's left is, you know, mini
bulks or totes and repackcontainers and any other size
performed that would be selling.You would be selling a 30 or 30
gallon drum, 55 gallon drum, andso on.
Joe Ikley (18:49):
and Mike, what about on your end?
Mike Bjertness (18:50):
I'm going to echo what Jeremy said. I really
comb through historical salesdata thing, primarily on the
prior one to the past five. Youknow, obviously different
products with different userates dictate what size. So if
we look at the acre treated, wecan start making decisions on
(19:13):
package package sizes. And it's,it's a geographical decision
too, because even within ourtrade area, trade territory, we
can see, say, on the easternend, guys are going to be using
higher rates of corn rather thansome of their their sugar beet
(19:34):
herbicides. You know, we'reselling nortron In 250 gallon
cages to some guys where others,just a few boxes will suffice.
So looking geographically andthen based on historical sales
data, that's how we how wedetermine our our package size,
mix. And usually we get pretty,pretty close. But I do like when
(19:57):
guys top up on on two and ahalfs To make sure the bulk
tanks are empty.
Sarah Lancaster (20:03):
So you were asking about package sizes, and
that made me think aboutformulation types. And I kind of
went back to when I was teachingundergrad Weed Science in a past
life and talking about thebenefits of different type of
like liquid formulations versusdry formulations. And students
are always like, Well, why don'twe package more stuff in dry
(20:25):
formulations? And I guess I wasjust curious to let you guys
talk about those differences andformulations and how you view
them, and you know, just liquidsversus dries in terms of
handling and your preferencesand that kind of thing. Does
that make sense?
Joe Ikley (20:40):
I think so. May want to start with Mike on that one,
since while they may be drivenby the end user in their
preference,
Mike Bjertness (20:52):
it's absolutely driven by the end user their
preference and theircapabilities of mixing what
their equipment dictates. Havingcut my teeth in a sprayer and
water truck, I can tell you thatI don't look incredibly favor
favorably upon a lot of dryformulations when it comes to
easy use, pre formulated liquidsare always preferable. In fact,
(21:16):
you know, years ago, I washearing about a dry formulation
of glyphosate. And how it wasgoing to transform our our
warehouses, instead of bulktanks, we were gonna have 50
pound bags that would do some somuch more that never came to
fruition. And I really think asas we progress, it seems like
more things are, are progressingto a liquid formulation and and
(21:42):
it's it's end user, and itsusability. Dry formulations just
are not as easy as as liquids inany way, shape or form.
Joe Ikley (21:51):
Yeah, I know, especially in gonna be similar
in many areas. But ourgeography, I think we're getting
groundwater in June. It's stillin the 30 to 40 degree range,
and so getting those dries todissolve is a major time issue
for us. With some of our coldwater we're pulling out of the
(22:11):
ground.
Mike Bjertness (22:13):
a hot water heater in a water truck is
nothing anybody wants,
Joe Ikley (22:19):
even those those on demand heaters, they it's a much
smaller hose size than what wewant to be pumping into a
sprayer. So, Jeremy, what aboutfrom your end? There's, there's
formulation type of questions,
Jeremy Safranski (22:32):
yeah, so, I mean, it's very similar to
Mike's, Mike's opinion it, it isall dictated from the end user.
And if you know they're havingmixing capabilities and so forth
in their sprayers. That allcomes back up to us, and it does
seem like no matter how we lookat it, liquid formulations, when
your handling it around in yourwarehouses, they're just they
(22:56):
handle better, they sit betteron a pellet, a 50 pound bag
doesn't, you know, a box of afive gallon box doesn't slide
off, as good as a 50 pound bagslides off, and then it slides
off, and then it rips on thecorner. And then you have, you
drag it halfway across yourwarehouse, and you have to have
somebody sweep it up and disposeof it properly with the right
(23:19):
disposal procedures and soforth. So, you know, when you
look at it from that point ofview too, it just always does
seem like the liquid formulationis easier handling and so forth,
with that as well, too. So yeah,to dictate and and basically
comment the same way the enduser, and it does seem like it's
an easier handling facility,handling as well, too.
Joe Ikley (23:42):
Feel like Sarah, you and I and our all of our weed
science colleagues might be theones who prefer dry, in many
cases, just because we can overorder and we know that stuff
will store forever. Dry Atrazineis a lot easier to mix than what
we're doing than resuspending afive year old jug. So some of
(24:07):
the other questions I had heregonna switch gears a little bit.
And and Sarah, maybe you havethought of a different example
along the way, but so we havetalked a bit about modeling and
going back on historicalrecords. And so the one that I
had brought up and posed to youguys, and the written questions
was, was basically, I'm thinkingabout paraquat in North Dakota.
(24:27):
For us, we're we're typically anAugust type of market. Uses it
to desiccate our crops, andSarah and I want to kill weeds.
And so maybe one of these days,people will listen to us, and
we'll shift in our geography toa burn spring burn down market.
You know how? How would thatplay into the typical cadence of
(24:48):
how you guys are managingthings? And maybe we'll start
with Jeremy on this one, andthen work back down to Mike.
Jeremy Safranski (24:53):
Yeah. So there's probably two parts to
that question. The first partwould be number one is pair.
Quite actually, in the country.So if paraquats in the country,
and we can move it from downsouth to up north, and there's a
little bit of that excesssupply, or we have some safety
stock and so forth that we canmove to North Dakota from, let's
(25:15):
just say Texas, for instance,because they have a pretty large
burn down run in Texas ofparaquat in the spring of the
year, and we can move it all theway up to North Dakota. Not that
huge of a deal. You know, fiveto 10 days probably, you know,
to put some wheels underneathit, get it all the way up north,
put a few truckloads under it.And just definitely not a big
(25:35):
deal. The second part of thatquestion would be, if it's not
in the country, so, and that's athat's a big deal. So if you're
bringing in paraquat, and it's45 days, if you're shipping it
from, you know, China, India,wherever it's being the
technical is being produced,then it has to come over. Most
paraquat is produced andbasically sent over as a
(26:01):
finished good there's a couplethings they add to it when it
gets over to the United States.So you're probably not tolling a
huge amount into the UnitedStates, but there is still some
added time frame that you'relooking at there. But if there
is technical into the UnitedStates, and you have to shift a
few things at a tolling facilitythat does take time. So then
(26:24):
you're looking at two to threeweeks to shift some tolling
lines that are available atdifferent tolling facilities, to
shift products around. So I kindof answered that in a two part
question, so I hope that kind ofanswers that.
Sarah Lancaster (26:40):
I'm wondering if we should clarify for the
listeners, when you say tollingfacility. Jeremy, can you
explain that a little on that?
Jeremy Safranski (26:48):
Yeah, so I can clarify, for tolling facility,
how we refer to that as it's,it's a facility that's, you
know, basically, will publicly,will publicly manufacture
technical into end goods for aspecific company. So whatever
company that is, they'll bringin technical product from comes
(27:13):
in as technical product fromChina, India, Argentina, any of
those type of countries. They'llship it in, bring it in. They'll
mix it in batches the proper waythat it needs to be mixed to put
it into suspension, and it'llcome out as end goods, and it'll
have the perfect label in thetote, in the two by two and a
(27:34):
half gallon jug and boxed on apallet, and shows up at your
doorstep through one of Mike'strucks or pick it up out of his
warehouse, so.
Joe Ikley (27:46):
And, yeah, so, Mike, what on your end? I mean, we can
use paraquat or a differentexample. You've gone got this
forecast and all of a sudden,you know, if you want to get,
oh, we'll stick with Paraquat.You want to get it in May rather
than August. You know, how doesthat kind of look in your world.
Mike Bjertness (28:03):
I called Jeremy. You know you Jeremy said it
best, and he's going to have amuch better handle on on the
upstream processes that'll getthat kind of quantity here. It's
always something that we'recognizant of as larger volume
products shift is theavailability and the
(28:25):
availability in time. I thinkI'd be accurate in saying that
there would probably beheartburn for one to two years
if that were a trend lineshifting that type of quantity
to a different time period, butthe market would resolve itself
pretty quick. So it's alwayssomething that that we keep in
the back of our minds, optionsor possibilities that might
(28:48):
happen throughout the season andand have some idea on how to
handle that, or alternatives,but we rely on on the upstream
distribution and manufacturingnetworks to help us through
that.
Joe Ikley (29:01):
So one commonality I'm hearing is something I
always tell my students thateven though, in our case, we're
working with weeds or work withproducts, this is still a people
business. Still have to havethose connections to grease the
gears and get things moving.
Mike Bjertness (29:17):
Very, very true. The Ag industry is very much a
relationship driven industry,and I think the trials that
we've gone through in the lastfour years accentuate that. So
it's it's really in buildingthose relationships and who you
build them with and how youtreat them,
Jeremy Safranski (29:39):
yeah, making it through COVID In the last two
years, or the two years of COVIDthat we had, I think, made us
better as an industry, andunderstanding that we needed to
be better communicators as anentire industry in depending
upon one another back and forth.So that did help us through some
of these things. From tryingtimes, is how I word it. So
Sarah Lancaster (30:04):
I guess, as we think about, you know, I think
especially somebody like you,Mike, you guys, have to choose
kind of what you're going tokeep in inventory, who you're
going to work with. How do youhandle, you know, maybe customer
preferences, or your owncompany, preferences for like
branded pre mixed productsversus buying off brand straight
(30:29):
goods and kind of tank mixingthings. How does that? How do
those options influence yourbusiness? Does that make sense?
Mike Bjertness (30:37):
It does. And I think that's a two part question
between pre mix and straightgoods, and then branded and
generic. And the way I woulddescribe it, as it comes down to
your business model, how youwant to position yourself, how
you want to present yourself as,as purely branded, purely
generic, from a cost standpoint,or or a hybrid model of both,
(31:01):
and we've adopted a hybrid modelof both. We still sell
predominantly branded productbecause we find a lot of merit
in the R and D throughmanufacturers, the support the
backside, support therelationships, and in a lot of
instances, those products areeither not available in an off,
(31:26):
Pat patent alternative, or quitea few instances, or they're
competitive enough where we canposition them correctly. I
haven't looked lately at thebreakdown between our branded
and generic as to exactpercentages. And then you have
to take into consideration, youknow, are you looking at dollar
(31:47):
volume or volume, physicalvolume? Because there is a
differentiation there. But whenit comes to that mix, I feel
like we've fallen into a prettygood rhythm of what our
customers are looking for, howwe want to present ourselves as
a company, and the targetaudience that we have. And then
(32:09):
when it comes to the pre mix andstraight goods, it really comes
down to the geographic fit tothe pre mix. We've seen a
handful of them out there thatcome out and they're presented
as the next easiest option, butthe ratios don't fit our
geography well at all. Theyeither either have way too high
(32:30):
components of some or way toolow of others, so we end up
spiking some in there are thereare a handful of very good
options when it comes to premixes, but we're, we're
skeptical of them. We'll vetthem pretty hard before we bring
them in and and start sellingfull full speed, or, you know,
(32:51):
full throttle on them.
Joe Ikley (32:53):
Yeah Sarah You should know some of that I'm always the
problem child when we do thesemulti state research trials,
because like, Nope, can't usethat pre mix up here.
Sarah Lancaster (33:05):
Even here, like, I don't want to sound like
I'm whining, but, like, a lot ofthings in the agronomy world are
here for the I states, right?And so even Kansas, we're kind
of the, you know, in some ways,fringe acres for corn and
soybeans. And so a lot of times,yeah, our eaters, our weed
spectrum is different, and so wejust need something slightly
(33:27):
different than what the theIowa, Illinois folks are driving
the market towards.
Mike Bjertness (33:35):
PH has come into play for us quite a bit when it
comes to those pre mixes. Youknow, our average is between a
7.8 and an 8.1 pH. So it'scompletely different spectrum
that we're working in comparedto the I states.
Joe Ikley (33:55):
It is an annual conversation I get to have
during protocol season withcompanies when they want a nice,
tidy national trial, the samefive to 10 treatments. I'm like,
your atrazine rate is threetimes what we even sniff at. And
then I know that's kind ofgeared more towards Mike, but I
(34:15):
don't know, Jeremy, if you hadany kind of thoughts around that
that question is that Sarah hadposed.
Jeremy Safranski (34:22):
yeah. So, I mean, it's, I would, you know,
be very similar in Mike'sresponse to it. A lot of it has
to be, you know, vetted out, andit has to be geared towards your
specific area. So, you know, I,I did run a facility up in
northern, North Dakota for awhile with CHS, and I always ran
(34:45):
into some pre mix issues with acanola rotation. A lot of the
pre mixes weren't designed forcanola rotation, and so I had
to, you know, look at that anddo a lot of separation of that
to make sure that I could getback to a canola rotation. And
I'm sure Mike's in the samesituation with a with a sugar
beet rotation, to get back tosome of those pre mixes that
(35:07):
that are out there. So they'regood in a lot of ways, for ease
of use and so forth, for thefarmers. And that makes it
easier for some of us as well tothere's one single product. It's
easy to ship. It's easy to getout the door. But again, right?
You have to do what'sagronomically right for your
farmers as well. So.
Joe Ikley (35:29):
All right, well, we are coming up close to the hour
so and we kind of got throughthe list. So kind of what we do
want to do is give you both kindof an opportunity, if we always,
if you're on social media, wantto plug yourself, we can provide
links, or if you have a just thecompany website, just so people
can kind of find out moreinformation about the places
(35:51):
that you work. And maybe we'llgo ahead and start with Mike on
this one.
Mike Bjertness (35:56):
Yeah, we're available on Facebook and also
our website, cwvalley.com,
Jeremy Safranski (36:02):
yeah. So you can find information on company,
CHS at www.CHSinc.com, or youcan find myself on LinkedIn if
you search my name.
Mike Bjertness (36:16):
I'm on LinkedIn too. forgot that.
Joe Ikley (36:18):
All right. And with that, we're going to wrap up
this episode. Thank thelisteners as always, and we'll
catch you next time on the Waragainst Weeds Podcast.
Sarah Lancaster (36:33):
Thanks for listening to the war against
weeds podcast. We appreciateyour listening. We appreciate
support from the north centralIPM center, and we appreciate
the collaboration with the CropProtection Network. At crop
protection network.org you canfind the war against weeds
podcast as well as otherpodcasts and a variety of other
(36:55):
information related to cropprotection. Thanks again for
listening, and we hope to seeyou next time you.
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