- A lot of people always do it
the way their parents did it. Maybe because I tried to defy my dad, that it made me look
at things differently. (soft music) My name is Jerry Seuntjens. I live in Northwest Iowa, Kingsley, Iowa. I grow corn and soybeans
in roughly 2,100 acres. I started farming with
my dad at a young age. He passed away when I was
roughly 29, 30 years old. He farmed with his dad also, so getting to be fourth generation. My earliest childhood memory, I think I was only five or six years old, grinding feed on an old
Johnny Popper tractor. I currently farm here by myself. A lot has changed. You look back at some pictures, you barely recognize the place
'cause it's just all new. When my grandpa was farming, the average maybe was
30, 40 bushel an acre. Today we're pushing upwards
of 300 bushel an acre. No one's got the right
answers for everything. I'm trying to do the best on my ground. My little piece of the world. There's always a better way
of doing anything you do. On my farm, I'm tracking
where I'm planting the seed, what variety, keeping
track of the rainfall, herbicides I'm applying,
then harvest, the yield data, fine tune everything,
keep track of everything. Get better at it every year. Definitely with digital ag, it
allows me to have more time. Trying to spend as much time with the family as it works out. - He's the one that totally introduced me to everything farming. I had no idea about the
work that went into it. Our very first Thanksgiving together, he was out in the field. I quickly learned his work ethic. - Talk to Sarah lately? - Yeah. - What's the game plan for Christmas? - They're gonna leave after Brian gets done with night shift. They should be here I
would think by noon or so. - On the 23rd or the 24th? - On the 23rd. - Nice.
- Yeah. Our daughter's getting married
at the end of the year, and she picked September 25th, which is cutting it
really close for harvest. I'm sure leading up to it
and after it will be hectic, but he knows what's important. He knows what matters
at the end of the day. He'll be there. - It's very hard to live in the now when you're planning all the time, trying to be better at it. There's a little bit more
downtime this time of year, but one season just pours into the other, and you always got to start planning ahead for the next year. Found a deal on a self-propelled spreader. Been wanting to look at
that angle for a while. That way I can play with the fertilizer and try to fine tune it. I purchased a tender to feed it. This winter I'll be putting
up some fertilizer tanks. I'm constantly managing risks to survive. A lot of decisions we
have to make as farmers make huge swings dollars and cents. You make a bad decision
and it can really cost you. 2020 was a tough year, and
most years are anymore, but that makes it exciting. I'm looking forward to 2021. Farming for me has always been a passion. Maybe only thing I was
ever good at, I don't know, but I feel that my job has purpose. - I'm very proud of Jerry. I have never met anybody
that is that passionate about his work. It's amazing what he's accomplished in just the time we've been married. I mean, I can't tell you
how much our farm has grown, how much better it's gotten, how much more efficient it's gotten. - I know what path I'm going. Sometimes it moves left or right, but I kind of know what I'm heading for. I guess that's what I love about this. There's always something to do and I'm always planning for tomorrow. Everything starts here on the farm. It's one profession that everyone needs. We need this food to eat. We need it for fuel. We need it for the materials that we use. It's spring, it's finally warming up. When you step outside, you
can just smell that dirt, you can smell that it's planting time. Mother Nature is always a challenge. Some years it's easier than others. We fight through it, no matter what. It's just a passion that I have, and I just keep on pushing through. As we get closer to planting time, for me, I want to optimize every acre. I want to get the best I can
with what was given to me here. I can control some things
of the planting season, but Mother Nature has
got a big role in it. Currently super dry. That's something that's
out of our control. Farmers rely a lot on faith. Put the seed in the ground
and just pray for a rain. Farming, it is a gamble. It's like a heck of a
game, that's for sure. That's your livelihood
out there to go check. The planning stage of it is very stressful because there is a lot of choices. Once I hit the field, it's
more of a relief for me because now it's just
implementing that plan. We have the planter here
that's got the seed tanks where we put the seed, the
different varieties in. It gets placed right onto the brush and takes it down to the seed trench where the seed is placed
at the correct spacing, and it's all driven electronically by the computer in the tractor. They should do a rodeo at the county fairs how fast you can break one of these apart and put them back together. In farming, tech and data
helps us be more efficient. I used FieldView, did a
lot of side-by-side trials. At harvest time, I'll see
what variety did the best. When we're planting, I already know that it is the right seed
in the right location. Now we're optimizing
the right tillage paths. I know on my ground, I'm
doing the best I can do. With all the restrictions
going on as farmers, we still have to get up
every day and go to work. My brother Jeff lives
in Singapore, actually. He could not come home this spring because of the restrictions. We communicate back and forth and he can just look on
FieldView to see the progress and anything that I got done, and then we can discuss accordingly. - I saw in Climate that
you missed the rain. That's a disappointment. - Yeah, did you see at home, got them side by side trials done there? - Yeah, that's why I wanted
to check in with you, but it looks like it's
exactly as we had planned. I'd like to see side by side how those different varieties
are going to perform. - With my brother not being back, I reached out to a good friend of mine. Mitch just graduated college and it's helped out tremendously
filling in that gap. - Working with Jerry's a lot of fun. We're constantly pushing each
other to think differently, try new things and try to figure out how we can go to the next level. What might work for us likely
may not work for somebody even 50, 100 miles away,
so it's very important that we learn from our farm and our data. - There's a lot of challenges out there. We have the weather, getting the seed up and out of the ground, keeping it healthy, getting that harvest before
something bad happens, storms, winds, whatever. That's the cards that you're
dealt and makes you stronger, coming out the other side,
no matter what happens. One of the keys to my success is my wife. Just keeps me balanced and I
can bounce things off of her. We work well together that way. - How much is left here? - I have 54 acres here. - Okay. It looked kind of like it was gonna rain. - [Jerry] Tonight I
think there is a chance. - [Shari] Boy, we could use some. - We did get the seed in the ground, and hopefully we get the rain that we need to supply the food for the world. I don't know if there is such a thing as an average year in farming. Every season has its challenges. Now we're getting into the crucial time. We're way into tasseling,
more flowering on beans. Roots are going down way deep. It gives me a chance to start seeing what kind of crop I got out there. I get to see the fruits of my labor. A farmer has to make 150
decisions on that crop every year before it's even in the bin. We just got to go with the
flow and see what happens. Mother Nature still has control. June 21st, storm came through, and this particular storm was quite wide. It was four to five miles wide. Started hearing the tink,
tink, tink, tink on my roof. That's when the sky opened up
and the wind started to blow. A lot of hail that damaged a
lot of crops, decimated 'em. That's part of farming. There's nothing that
anyone can do about it and farmers the next day
just start after it again. I still had a time period
where I could start replanting, rebuild, and tomorrow's a new day. To make a really good crop, we need rain. It's super dry, sub five
inches for the year. That's extremely low. I should be closer to the 10-12 range. With FieldView, I've been tracking it in all my different farms. We're surviving, but it's
not gonna be a bumper yield. The new genetics that we have in seed now, it's buying us a lot of
time in droughts like this. I probably have been through two different droughts for sure. The first one, we did
not have the genetics. The end result was pretty devastating. Here I am with sub five inch
rain, and it looks tough, but there's gonna be
a fairly decent yield. The genetics are getting us a long way. This is pretty amazing. It's always been a passion of mine. Growing up in a rural community, there was always walking beans, baling, taking care of livestock. At a very, very young age, that's what I always felt
like I was meant to do. Anytime I go across the field, I enjoy it. When the crop is coming up,
it is kind of cool to see that life started in that little sprout, and as it grows, I always enjoy that. Digital farming is really
helping out farmers, and me in particular. There's gotta be a better way of doing it. I want to do a better Jerry every season. Starting to think ahead
of the harvest now. Getting equipment ready,
combines, grain heads, grain bins. I have motors, augers all get checked out, got fertilizer coming in next week. So never a dull moment. It's gonna be an
interesting one this year. It's gonna be really spread out. There's gonna be two seasons of beans now, since I planted at two different times. Plus, I got a wedding coming up, my daughter's wedding's coming up, so I'm super excited about that. - After our first date
and I called and I asked, when did you know that
you and dad were it? And then she was like, I
think within two weeks. And I said okay, I think I know. I'm just excited to celebrate
with everyone together. It is pushing harvest time,
and I'm aware of that, but we'll take whatever time
we can get with everyone. It's so nice to come back here
and just to see for miles. It's beautiful. Sunrise, sunset, anytime of day. I love it. I think growing up in a
rural community like this is invaluable and
something that Brian and I look forward to raising children in and showing them the value of. There's nothing like being
able to turn to your neighbor in a time of need, and that
real true community support that I feel like you can't get elsewhere. - Look forward for her and
Brian moving closer to us, to be able to spend more time with them. They always say it goes
by in the blink of an eye, and it really does. Obviously everyone looks back. You always reminisce, but I'm always excited about the future. I gotta be successful
because we need food to eat. There's a lot of people out here to feed. Hopefully we have quite a bit to harvest. We'll see what happens,
and plan the best you can and adapt accordingly. That's farming. This is me, this is what we do, this is how it works. (soft music) I've been here my whole life. What I do here on my acres
is what's important to me. I have the opportunity to do something that I'm super passionate about and try to do better every year. I'm hoping every year is
the best year I ever had, and then the next year,
it'll be even better yet. It takes a lot of planning. Some people want to
call it luck, so be it, but luck definitely favors the prepared. (soft music) I'm probably midway through the season. Super dry this year, sub five inches of rain until September, crops starting to turn by that time, but we did make up a lot of ground then. My daughter's wedding is coming up, so I'll try to hammer
out as much as I can, tackle that and get right back to harvest the following week. Normally my brother would
come home from Singapore to help me this fall. Because of travel restrictions
with everything going on, he was unable to make the trip. Thankfully, Mitch stepped
up and is doing a great job in helping me out. Otherwise I would be way behind. - You want me to turn around
down in this valley here? Do you want me to keep coming further? - [Jerry] Come up here on the flat and then I can make another
round after we unload. - Probably the one thing I enjoy the most is every year brings a new challenge. No year has ever been the same,
nor will ever be the same, and that's what makes it fun. - Yes, I love the yields
that we're getting, but I'm more excited about seeing the data to see how it got to
that point, good or bad. Every acre is different. Every acre stands on its own, and I can track all that with digital ag. That's how you're gonna learn and do a better job on every acre. - If we don't learn anything this year, to Jerry and I that year is a failure. We constantly have to be learning and progressing in this
industry to survive. - I feel very blessed to have him help me and we're having a fun
time getting work done. (gentle music) Hey, honey.
- Hey. Got you some food. - I like food.
- Yeah. Balance has always been a
thing for us because Jerry, for the most part, he works alone. It's not like he has a ton of downtime. Jerry is very work
driven, and so I was like, you're gonna have one daughter
getting married one time. You're gonna have 60, 70
harvests if we're blessed. Please be present at this time. - Sarah's wedding went incredible. I had it in my mind
that when that day came, I was gonna leave the farm behind, 'cause I can always make more money, but I can't get time back. I worked really hard to be
in the present to enjoy that, and it was incredible. I had to laugh that Sarah
is a planner like I am. I mean, she had it planned to the minute where everyone needed to be, what everybody should be doing, and it went flawless that way. The night of the hailstorm, you know, you go through a whole mix of emotions. You're mad, you're sad,
but we just go after it, give it your best shot. You keep on swinging. I'm always trying to learn something from bad things that happen. It's nice having a digital tool to keep track of all
them different layers. You can see here, field
health back in mid-June, everything looks normal
until the hailstorm came, and then easily see exactly
where the hailstorm went and eliminated all that. So when it came to harvest, obviously you can see
throughout the field, it didn't make a difference
when I planted it, which is very surprising. Super excited about that, that it would produce that kind of yield with the weather that we had. It's amazing what these plants can do now, planting that late and
still get a bountiful yield is pretty impressive. My grandpa would have
had horses to plant with. My dad would have older
hit and miss tractors. We've made quite a leap
to where we are today with almost total automation. It's interesting to me to see what the next 30, 40, 50 years will bring. Digital tools and the genetics really help the return on our investment. We're getting more yields on less water, less fertilizer, and
obviously that helps maximize every profit I can get. I feel truly blessed to be getting what we're
getting, yield-wise. I'm not in competition with my neighbors. My main goal is try to
do better every year. Quality, not quantity on my acres. We're harvesting now, but I'm already planning for next year. Soon as harvest gets done, it's
often doing dry fertilizer, continuing until the snow flies, start hauling this year's crop to market. Pour into springtime,
start all over again. It's a new year, new season. I don't know what my dad would say if he was still alive to see all this. Probably complain that it costs so much. I assume he'd be super
proud that I took it and grew it to what it is today. I have a lot here. I'll survive. That's what farmers do. (soft music)
