0:00Hi guys, I'm at Bountiful Blessings Farm with my dad, John. And we're going to be talking about some of the efficiencies that have had the biggest payoff here on

0:08the farm. With 27 years of experience in farming, you probably have a lot of great examples of this. So, what are

0:15some of the top efficiencies that you've implemented here on the farm that have had the biggest payoffs?

0:23Well, I would say listen to your wife.

0:26That's probably the biggest efficiency I, you know, it took me years.

0:33I mean, we're slow learners, I guess,

0:36but um we had these I guess it's called a trapezoid or

0:43something. Our fields were trapezoid shaped because of the lay of the land,

0:50but it was very inefficient because you had to have row cover and everything that would cover, you know, different

0:58both the corners. And anyway, we we've went to a a JM workshop one time. Um,

1:08and coming home from the workshop, my wife says, "Why don't we just have all our fields standard size, you know, and

1:17and I start giving her all the reasons why that doesn't work on our farm." And I realized I was just rationalizing.

1:27Yeah. So, it was like, "Okay, well,

1:29let's try that actually." And it's been huge. So, it's a lot of work to make a shift like that. Yeah. It it takes time,

1:38but you know, standardization as far as field size, bed length, um is it seems

1:49like not a big deal, but it's huge, you know, when you're sorting through row covers, trying to figure out the right

1:56length road cover and so on. Um, so we've made a lot of progress in that

2:02area after listening to my wife. um everything standard lengths

2:11um standard procedures you know we only have one weight of row cover we only have um I don't know I'm trying to think

2:21of other examples silage tarps silage tarps just one size yeah so well irrigation systems like the

2:29overheads it's all all the same system for all the field blocks I can't emphasize that enough? And again, you

2:38know, Ben Hartman talks about that a lot in his book, The Lean Farm. But again, I

2:43I would credit JM4A for for really um kicking us in that direction with

2:51standardization. That's that's a that could take people uh you know, a long time to to implement that. And you know,

2:59it goes back to something we were talking about in a previous video, which is take the time before you, you know,

3:05before you establish your farm to come up with the systems and your flow and your standards and stuff cuz, you know,

3:12for you guys, 50ft beds, you know, is what you landed on, but for somebody else, it might be a different length.

3:20Um, but getting that all all that layout and field blocks and everything laid out before you start breaking ground is

3:28important cuz you know for for us here on the farm, we had years of investment in trapezoidal fields that had to be

3:36undone. Yeah. To change. And so that was probably a lot of the friction is like,

3:41man, we already have everything set up this way, but in the end it was worth it. It just would have been better if we' done it at the very beginning. And I

3:50will say we actually have two bed lengths. So I I wish I could say we're totally standardized, but in the field

3:58because we're using tractors, using tractors on 50ft beds is just that's not

4:05efficient at all. So in the field we do have 100 foot beds and in all our intensive areas we have 50 foot beds.

4:15Yeah, you can have a couple standards, but you know, the the less you can have,

4:20the better, I think. So, hopefully this tip on just standardizing your uh standardizing your production, bed size,

4:29field plot width, all these different things will be helpful as you move forward in looking for ways to be maximally efficient on your farm. Until next time, happy growing.

4:39[Music]