As we learned in Steve Fresk’s first article, he began farming at the age of fifty while still working full-time in the seed industry. In this article, Steve further explains how his time in the seed industry and his mindset of curiosity set him up for success in farming. 

Curiosity Drives Success

I had worked thirty-five years in the seed industry when I began farming. I wasn’t coming in with any preconceived ideas. I wasn’t committed to a big line of machinery or a livestock enterprise. When I started, I ran machinery on a per-use basis from my partner. I didn’t own a big four-wheel-drive tractor. And I didn’t have a barrel of diesel fuel. 

Part of my success in farming has come from always being curious, which is something I’ve carried forward from my time in the seed industry. I would look to see what successful people did to make themselves successful. And I would also consider what some less successful people were doing—the things that were maybe holding them back. I figured out early in my career that if you’re not always learning, you’re going backwards. And so I made that my challenge—to always be learning something and then to help others learn as well.

One hallmark for me, personally, is mentorship. I was very well mentored when I was young, and it’s been my goal to mentor young people in turn. I don’t tell them what to do, but I try to help them realize and understand how we should approach life issues, faith, and family life. I have mentored the guy that I farm with. Likewise, I mentored Nate Firle, whom a lot of us know, as well as the Beck’s seed advisor who I buy all my seed from. In fact, I have many former coworkers and mentors that work for Beck’s and I like what the company stands for; they take care of the old guy (me) very well.  

Improvement Starts with Questions

During all my years in the seed business, I wasn’t focused on telling farmers what they should do. Instead, my first order of business was always to ask them questions. What are your challenges? What are your frustrations? What are your goals? From there, I had to figure out if we could work together to address problems or situations and work toward the farmer’s goals. This approach, combined with curiosity, allowed me to do some really interesting things in the seed business, such as helping to start the Northrup King seed advisor program and hire seven of the first ten seed advisors they had in the whole company. 

As a way to illustrate the value of curiosity, I was just thinking the other day about seed meters and adjusting and checking them. I got my first seed meter in 1981 and we were running it on a variable-speed drill. We weighed out the kernels on a gram scale and figured out that we were only getting an eighty percent drop with the unit. From there, we had to work backwards to figure out the cause. 

Why did we do that? Because, as a seed sales manager, if it wasn’t my fault it was the farmer’s fault. If a crop problem was my fault, the farmer made one mistake: he bought the wrong seed. However, if the problem wasn’t the result of bad seed, then he did something improper with planting, tillage, herbicide application, or some other operation. 

If a guy gets mad at my seed because of something he did and decides he doesn’t want to buy it again, he’s probably going to have the same problem again next year with a different supplier. That’s why we came up with the concept of looking at the whole operation when selling seed to farmers. 

Let’s look at your planter ahead of time. Let’s help you get that better stand. Let’s take a look at your tillage practices ahead of time. Let’s look at your grain types. Let’s help you get more profit.

A Snapshot of Steve’s Farm

The challenge when I started farming was to apply the same criteria to myself. Why are we doing this or that? What could we do differently? That’s been the fun of farming. Right now, I farm four hundred and fifty acres, split between corn, soybeans, and CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) land. I include my fifty-four acres of CRP because it was a deliberate decision to put that in because of drainage problems. We couldn’t get drainage to that ground economically. Does that mean I’m going to leave it in CRP forever? No; when we get some county main tiles and ditches repaired, and the CRP contract is up, I’ll maybe start farming it again. 

The rest of my farm is in a conventional corn and bean rotation. All of the land I farm is either owned by my wife and me or a sister or a cousin. As a matter of fact, the land is all century farm land. Back in 1907 my grandfather and his brother owned a grocery store in a small town. After people started buying Model Ts, they weren’t driving horses to town any more. So my grandfather saw the writing on the wall—no one would be stopping in a little town of one hundred and twenty people to buy groceries any more. He convinced his brother to sell the store, and my grandfather bought a farm in 1907 and began farming. My grandfather also helped to start a creamery and a cooperative elevator company. And my grandmother fought for voting rights for women back in the 1920s, so I guess you could say I come from a curious (or eccentric) background. 

Don’t Get Caught in a Title

As I mentioned, I currently have all my land, save for the CRP ground, in a corn-soybean rotation. In the fall, I hit all my ground very lightly with a vertical till machine and then I don’t touch it again until the spring, when I plant right into it. I don’t do spring tillage. 

Am I a committed no-tiller? No, not necessarily. That’s why I encourage people not to get caught up in titles and start thinking, ‘I can’t do that because I’m a no-tiller’. If some form of tillage would have been the right decision for the acreage, you’d really be limiting yourself. Or, take it the opposite way: thinking you can’t no-till because you’re committed to a full tillage program. You have to do what’s right for every acre and for your operation as a whole. 

Decide What Works for Your Farm

As I’ve already alluded to, I’m pretty unique in that I don’t own a single piece of equipment. That has been one of my real advantages—to have a working relationship where I can rent machinery on a per-pass basis. We use the Iowa State custom rate survey to calculate the rental prices per acre. 

And that includes an operator and a tractor. If the operator happens to be me, I subtract twenty dollars an hour. I trust the equipments’ owner, Craig, to do all the scheduling. For example, the planter we use runs over about thirty-two hundred acres across forty-five miles and three different operations. But it’s always worked out. The planter goes to the acres that are ready and on down the road from there. 

Digging Deeper 

In his next article, Steve gives us a closer look at his operation and how “ah-ha” moments can drive decision making in life and on the farm.