(upbeat music) - Welcome to A Shot of Ag.

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

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

I started a podcast which led into an XM radio show, which led into a national television show, which led into me being right here today.

But today, today is not about me.

Today is about Mark Black and Matt Brooks.

Welcome guys.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- It's the first time we've ever had two people on here.

Do you feel important?

- Absolutely.

- Of course, of course.

- That's (indistinct) boy.

It doesn't take much for you guys as... (all laugh) You guys are the owner of KT Precision Ag.

Now, where are you from?

- We are from just the east side of St. Louis.

We're in South Roxanna, Glen Carbon Highland area.

- [Rob] Okay, is that where you're from originally?

- Originally I'm from Newton, Illinois.

- [Rob] Newton.

- The Southeast of Effingham.

- Gotcha, okay.

- Yeah.

- You guys were a guest on the Shark Farmer Podcast.

I'm fascinated by entrepreneurs and stories.

Mark, you and I went to Southern Illinois University, we both.

Where did you go, Matt?

- I graduated...

Originally I went to Lakeland by Mattoon.

Took a little stand out to North Carolina and went to UNCW for a year.

And then I came back and graduated from Eastern Illinois.

I was surrounded by cornfields.

- Degree from Eastern.

We'll talk slower.

(all laugh) All right, let's do a bit of a quick background because it's you... What you guys did is pretty cool.

Tell me you graduated college and then tell me about the fertilizer business.

- Graduated from Carbondale with a agribusiness degree and then from there moved to the St. Louis area.

Moved out of the lawn care industry and into the green industry, working with lawn care.

A lot of people think lawn care, mowing.

- Yeah.

- Irrigation, that type of stuff.

We were the chemical guys.

But working for somebody...

Working for another company, did that for about four or five years or five, six years, learned how the industry worked, the pros and the cons.

The independent world, the corporate world, and finally decided there's no reason to be doing this for somebody else.

Might as well do it for ourselves and at that-- - You two were working together there?

- Originally we worked together at Munie Outdoor down Caseyville area for a little while together.

Mark was there with that company.

I split off and went to another company, learn how they did the business.

And then whenever Munie sold out, then that's where we came together.

- [Rob] Started your own.

- Yeah.

- Did you have success?

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

We started... Matt originally started business in 2001 and then I came in in 2002.

And between the two of us, we jumped up to just under 6,000 residential and commercial customers.

- This 6,000, that's a small city.

- Pretty much, yeah, pretty much and logistics are always a treat.

- This was not like the big national chains.

This was just you two guys, went out there busted your hump and then all of a sudden you got 6,000 customers that wants you to fertilize their lawn.

- Right, and of course you don't do it alone.

You with folks that work for you, you gotta make sure you have the right group.

We're working with you.

And as time progressed, yes.

We wound up having the right group of people working with us.

We just try to mold them and push them in the right direction.

I think when we sold that portion of our business, we were at approximately 32 33 employees and running 22 trucks.

- Geesh, very long story short, you guys decided to sell that business that was burning you out, a lot of things.

You can go listen to this on the Shark Farmer Podcast.

I was fascinated by the story.

Unfortunately, we just don't have the time on the show to talk about it all, but you guys incredible success.

It was getting to a bunch of reasons why it was not working out.

Tell me about that conversation where you guys decide, "We're gonna sell."

- I think we have been approached by national companies multiple times about selling over the years and we pushed that back, "We're not ready.

We're not ready.

It's just not the time yet, but I don't have enough money put away.

The company's not large enough, so on and so forth."

And then it came to be multiple issues started occurring, from miscellaneous work comp claims to vehicles and accidents, to occasional quality issues.

We grew this company from nothing to over 5,000 customers and lawn care and tree care because we did a high quality job.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- It was a referral based company.

50% our sales, even to our last year were always just referrals and a few things were slipping.

We lost a couple of few key personnel people and I think all the combination of that and the stress levels, it just came to be and the offer came at the right time, that we decided to decided to move on.

- It wasn't the fact that you were fertilizing people's lawns, which made them mow more often and you just couldn't live with your conscious?

- No, because you get in the metropolitan areas, it's you gotta keep up with the Joneses.

- [Rob] Oh my gosh!

The yards are beautiful.

- Oh yeah.

- [Rob] Yeah, I've made that mistake, of fertilizing our yard and I'm like, "My gosh, we gotta mow the thing every three days."

- Yeah, well that our goal was clean and green and hey, it worked.

And of course like what Matt said, "It becomes one of those, if you can't beat them, buy them."

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And initially we were like, "Well, do we wanna do this?

Do we not wanna do this?"

Turned it down and we were told, "There will not be another offer ever."

Okay, great, that was on Friday.

Okay, back to the grind we go.

On Tuesday, "How about three months from now," okay.

(all laugh) - The entire story is on the Shark Farmer Podcast.

We're gonna jump way ahead though, okay.

You guys did sell the business.

You did the whole American dream thing.

You were working, you built a business, you sold it and now you guys are doing some other stuff, which gets us to these.

Now these are...

Most people call them a drone.

But that's not officially what they're called.

- They're officially called UAVs.

- [Rob] UAVs.

- All right.

Unmanned aerial vehicles.

- [Rob] Okay.

- And this right here is just the one that we use for scouting, but we have moving through stuff, we decided we would begin a business using them to spray fields instead of using a ground rig or an airplane.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You can fly drones to spray.

- Matt, I want you to tell that story about how this whole idea came about.

- Sure, so after we sold our business in 18 and 19, we primarily were still doing some spray work.

Were still doing chemical spray work for a Mark Twain Forest and Mark Twain lake.

And also a Corp of Engineer work we recently started doing a project where in 19, where we were actually spraying all the rip wrap around locks and dams all the way from New London and all the way up to Dubuque.

And to cut all that a little shorter, we were spraying an area that was primarily rip rap and sand.

It was probably a two acre area along the river, across from Canton, I believe I'm right.

- [Mark] Yes.

- Across from Canton and pigweed and waterhemp were six to seven feet tall.

- Did you use napalm?

(Rob laughs) - That's what we needed.

We were trying to do this by hand, old-fashioned way, just like you spray lawns, hose, gun.

- Oh my gosh!

- 300 foot of hose, walking out through to that, trying to get through it, trying to spray over the top of that and of course it's 90 degrees on top of that.

- When you say rip rap, are you talking of big stuff?

- I'm talking of large boulders?

- That sounds fun to walk over.

- As along with being grown up with all that on top of it, so you can't see where you're walking just to find the boulder to even step on at that point.

- Did you find big foot in there?

- Maybe a few cotton mouths.

(all laugh) But so we get done with that job, we get back and that was the final job of that summer, was that position.

And I told Mark, "I go, there's got to be a better way."

- [Rob] Yeah.

- 'Cause we knew we couldn't drive a vehicle in there to spray it.

We knew spraying by hand was not working.

There's gotta be another.

What if you sprayed it with a drone?

And so we come back, we start doing a little bit of research and sure enough, they actually make spray drones.

There's not a lot of them out there, especially at that point in time.

- Yeah.

But with all that research and find out that, "Okay, we might be able to use this for this Corp of Engineer project," and realize that's not where the business is.

The business is in ag, being able to spray with it.

- Yeah, you can buy these in Walmart.

You could buy them.

Not probably not this fancy of one.

- Right.

- But you can buy a drone to all the YouTubers are out there and doing stuff to actually have one that can work on a commercial level where you're actually spraying stuff.

Can just an average person go out and buy one?

- Anybody can go buy that...

Anybody can buy a drone.

Anybody can go spray with them.

It doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna be doing it right.

It doesn't necessarily mean, they're following the rules.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Can anybody do it, yes.

- Well, that's what I meant by can is if they're following the rules.

(Rob laughs) - And when I say follow the rules is, you have to... You're not just a licensed applicator.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You have to take your aerial general standards to become a licensed applicator to fly.

- What's that?

The aerial general-- - Well, in state Illinois to pursue to apply any type of pesticide, you have to take your general standards, then you have to take your category tests.

Well, the difference between the guys in the little yellow planes that are flying and the guys that are spraying on the ground, is you have to take the aerial general standards.

It's entirely different test.

- You're taking the same test to spray with this, then the guy in a plane?

- Yup, yup.

- I don't know.

I don't make the rules, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

- Well, and for a lot of the stuff that you have to work through the FAA to get authorization to be able to fly, it's the same thing.

Because your license that you have to fly a drone is going to be a little different than as a pilot who is flying one of those planes.

However, you need to have that pilots license almost to be able to dispense chemicals from the air.

That's the big difference.

What you have to do as a drone pilot is request relief from the FAA.

We are now more than 10 months into that process.

It's just about finished, but we're more than 10 months into that process.

- Are you sure?

- It's gonna be finished to put it that way.

- I think every farmer has had this idea.

What if we could just spray from the air?

It'd be so much easier.

You wouldn't have the compaction on the ground, ton of advantages to it.

But my sprayer has an 800 gallon tank, water's heavy.

How does this all the whole thing work?

- The big difference between that and your conventional ground rig and your plane that flies over, yeah, your ground rig when you're spraying, okay.

You can cover the ground.

You can cover acreage, but you have to put so many gallons to the acre.

Aerially there's per the label.

You can put a minimum amount of whatever it says, which could be up to two gallons to the acre, which is only 20% of what the ground rigs put down.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- The only problem with the plane is you're flying over at 140 miles an hour and you're letting it drift down.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- If there's any wind or any variants, well, that you may not get even coverage.

With a UAV or drone when you fly across, that prop wash is pushing that material down into the plant, so you get much better coverage.

You're flying with lower volume.

Is it going to be coming back more often to be able to refill, change out the batteries?

Absolutely, but that is also part of the process.

We can range anywhere from two to eight acres per load.

You might think, "Well, that's not advantageous when you're doing 250 acres or need to be doing 250, 300 acres a day."

Well then you also have to adjust by your volume that goes out and you constantly have a battery charger going.

We've got a trailer build out with battery chargers, with batteries, with tanks, you name them.

- Two to eight acres, I would've thought less.

- Hmm.

- Hey, that's pretty good.

- But it also depends on the size of drone.

There's other companies out there that use smaller drones, but now we've seen a lot more.

- Yeah, the sizing is definitely up there upscaling.

- Okay, so the drone-- - It started out with 10 liters to 20 liters to 30 liters.

Now they're moving ahead, but you can spray an acre in a minute.

- Okay, can we just get over the fact that I'm gonna call it a drone?

'Cause it's, yeah.

- Everybody else.

- Everybody else, all right?

- So do we.

- But we get corrected when we speak with the FAA.

- The drone that you're using to do the spraying, how big is it?

- It's between seven and eight feet diameter.

It has eight 30 inch propeller, boat motors on it.

- [Rob] Can you ride that thing?

- Yeah.

- If it was empty, it would definitely probably lift a 100 pounds off the ground.

- [Rob] Have you tried it?

- No, no.

- [Rob] Oh, come on.

- No.

- You haven't tried it?

- It's-- - Can I try it?

- No.

(Rob laughs) - That'd be an expensive screw up.

It's what that would be.

- That's a big machine, right?

- Sure it is.

- Yeah.

- Do you mind if I ask?

Because that's obviously what people are wondering.

What's a unit like that cost?

- It will depend.

We utilize two from a company based out of Texas called Helio and their pricing is flat out on their website.

You're gonna spend around, I don't know, 35, $40,000 for one unit.

- [Rob] Okay.

- We have two of these units.

You're predominantly paying for the proprietary mission control software because it's input-output.

You have to map the field, you have to put all of that information and you have to determine your spacing, how everything sprays.

Perfect, that's what you're paying for.

We also have one that Matt specifically built that is on the exact same type of base platform, that is a lot cheaper than that.

But the one big difference is, is the program that is utilized for that is like DJI.

Anything that you use for the DJI drones runs through China.

Well, a lot of times when you get near governmental installations, those are no-no zones for being able to fly a drone.

The one that we have run strictly through the United... Or the ones that we utilize is run strictly through the United States.

You get a lot better blessing from--- - [Rob] Merica.

- That's right, that's right.

- Well, and it's also the problem.

It's the software obviously going through America-- - Yeah.

- Technical issues.

If we've got a problem with it-- - [Rob] What, come on.

- Mark's been able to pick up the phone, talk to Nick at Helio.

Whenever I've had issues with the other one that we've built, this is from China.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- It's dealing with WhatsApp at midnight.

(all laugh) - You're dealing with a little different time zones there.

(indistinct chatter) - Okay, well let's just ballpark, 30 grand.

If we're okay.

My sprayer is a 2012.

I think we paid $150,000 for you buy a new sprayer.

You're talking over 1/2 a million.

I think I've seen some at $600,000.

All of a sudden that $30,000 is starting to make sense.

Is this commercially viable?

- Is it, yes.

Will it be commercially viable to do it just for two guys running a business?

That might be a little tough.

That might mean starting with two different crews, having a couple of different people to help out.

We're gonna be able to go places that people cannot go.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And last year with rain and issues of folks getting in the field, plain and simple.

If I charge you $25 an acre to spray, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're charging me $25 an acre to spray.

But that extra fungicide on that corn increases your yield by 20 30 bushels to the acre.

Hmm, that seems like a pretty good bargain.

- Get out there.

- All right.

- That's why, and for some of the fields that you have, and especially down where we live, again it's tough to find a square field.

You go up in Central Illinois and up in this area here, there's a lot of large square fields.

Would it be great for us to do that?

Yeah, but would it make common sense?

Probably not.

Much easier for airplanes to get into and so on and so forth.

But you get into some of these smaller fields, some of these odd shaped areas, it's piece cake for what we can do.

- Is it hard to fly, Matt?

- It's not really that hard to fly.

It's primarily the whole setup is made to take the human error out of it.

They're made to fly autonomously.

1/2 of the work is going out and mapping the fields.

- You're not sitting there with joysticks and you've got the top gun music-- - No.

- In your headphones.

- Right.

- These things you're flying.

- They are flying on their own.

You've set up.

Obviously you have to do all the mission planning and it really is a mission.

You're setting the speed.

You're setting the height, you're setting the width, you're setting the flow rate on the pumps.

You getting a certain amount down, but once that's all set and set to take off, it's on its own.

- Where are you guys at?

You guys have sprayed fungicide, correct?

Are you doing anything else?

- Last year, we spent more time training than anything else.

And again, you wanna walk before you can run and that's what our objective was here, so this year we're ready to go.

You can spray fungicides.

You can spray herbicides.

The other great thing about it is being able to spot spray.

We can take this small little guy right here, take it up over a field and if you've got a 80 acre field and only 10 acres of it... 80 acres of beans and only 10 acres of it it's got patches of waterhemp in it, we can map that out, throw that information into our drone, hit launch and sit back and twiddle our thumbs while just those patches of weeds are sprayed versus taking a ground rig or an airplane and go and blanket spraying that entire field.

- That's amazing.

That's cool and all, but even like last year when you said that, "Okay, we'll just spray the field."

Now the price of herbicides-- - That's right.

- The case has quadrupled.

- That's right.

- It's all of a sudden y'all looking pretty smart.

(all laugh) Have you been able to try the rip rap since you've been doing it or you're still not yet?

- We've been waiting on that final approval for the FAA.

- Really?

- Yeah.

The Corp of Engineers is excited.

They're on board.

They're ready to go.

They wanted us to come up and try it this last summer on the second visit.

But so we're just waiting on this last little hoop to jump through.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- Mark's work the other day where he's already went in and mapped every location on every lock and dam that we can actually use them on.

- [Rob] Oh yeah.

- We're ready to go as soon as we get the green light.

- The great thing about this too, is you don't necessarily have to look at it strictly from a agricultural standpoint.

That's industrial so that it can be utilized for industrial purposes.

Like Matt said, some of the work that we also do in Missouri and Mark Twain National Forest, they have very... Or Mark Twain lake area also, they have areas that they have invasive species such as multiflora rose, autumn olives.

If you've got large patches, it's hard to spray that from the ground.

I can go right over the top.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Hit every bit of it.

- I'm just thinking literally 'cause, but we use fungicide, which if people are worried about fungicide, it's like Tinactin and it's the foot stuff, it's...

But we have the wind turbines on our farm.

The airplanes go around them.

I'm looking at my yield maps is crazy, how much I'm losing just in that little area, or if they are doing the end row And like you said, it drifted over a little bit.

I could see there's gonna be a ton of application.

The pioneers get all the arrows, which you guys are the pioneers on all this, but is this hard to get started up?

- It is.

We sometimes over research stuff, but we have done it from beginning to end.

We've taken a look at company, other companies out there, there's one in Iowa that franchises it out and they give all the people the tools to do it.

But then you basically pay a royalty to them continually.

We took a look at their setup, but literally utilize nothing of it.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- We created a Facebook group for people who use the Helio platform, so people can bounce ideas off of each other.

I've got-- - We're running out of time and what I don't wanna do is run out of time without you guys being able to say where people can find you.

Where do people find out more information about what you're doing and KT Precision Ag specifically?

- Predominantly right now, strictly via Facebook and KT Precision Ag-- - You're such a Gen Xer.

(all laugh) Sorry, sir.

All right.

Facebook, where else?

(Rob laughs) - Pretty much in Facebook.

Just because well, most of the population that will look things up, will go to Facebook itself.

Haven't really went Twitter or TikToK, but I'm sure that will happen.

My wife loves her TikTok so-- - No dancing drones on there.

- Yet.

- Yeah.

(Rob laughs) - We will wind up going that, but KT Precision Ag, or if you google it, we would be able to show up.

In fact, we had a Bayer rep contact us because he googled spray drones, Metro East, Illinois and we showed up.

There's always avenues, but we'd be more than happy to help anybody out.

Or even if he might just has discussions that, how does this process go?

You name it.

- If you wanna hear the whole story, Mark Black, Matt Brooks, you just google Mark Black, Matt Brooks in Shark Farmer Podcast.

Amazing success story.

It's like the American dream and now you guys are starting all over.

Are you as nervous this time?

- Yeah.

- No.

(Rob laughs) - Yeah, it's good to have folks like yourself.

People that you can network with in what you do and then also in the agricultural industry.

- Nobody will watch us.

All right.

(all laugh) Mark and Matt, thank you very much.

Everybody else, hopefully we'll see you next week.

(upbeat music)