The Water Table Appears On… Farmland News with Fladeboe Land

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now it’s time for Farmland News with Fladeboe Land

Bill Dean (00:04):
Time to visit with Kristine Fladeboe with Fladeboe Land. Kristine comes in the first Thursday of each month, and great to see you, Kristine, and sounds like you’ve made quite a few miles since we last talked.

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (00:15):
That’s correct. Good morning, Bill. Good morning to the public. Once again, it’s great to be here, I always enjoy my drive in to Lakeland Broadcasting. That is correct, I’ve been across the world in the last week, I made my eighth trip to Hong Kong, there’s an organization that my husband, kids and I have fallen in love with, and that name is International Care Ministries, they serve the ultra poor in the Philippines, Guatemala, and Uganda, and it is not about me, it’s not for my praise, but I’m so fortunate and honored to be their auctioneer. And so last Friday night in Hong Kong, we had a large banquet with many attendees, and at the same time there was a large banquet in Manila, Philippines, and so they were broadcast, I was physically in Hong Kong, but there was a lot of people in Manila, Philippines, and it raised a lot of money, sadly, in the scope of poverty, it’s just a drop in the ocean, but every dollar makes a difference and to grow awareness.

(01:33):
So, I had a wonderful trip, a humbling trip, and met a lot of new people and a lot of friends that I’ve known for about a decade, and I think what brought me the most joy, Bill, is just to encourage this organization. When you’re staff fighting ultra poverty, that can feel pretty heavy a lot of days, and so last Tuesday morning, I led the devotional time and tried not to cry, but I cried and cheered them up and we sang and it was just wonderful to be there in an encouragement role, but like anything when you do that, I’m not the gift, they’re the gift to me, I went home with my soul fed and my heart whole, and those folks added so much joy to my life, so thankful for another trip to Hong Kong.

Bill Dean (02:25):
Yeah. Well, wonderful. Now, Glen has talked about, has he been on similar excursions then too?

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (02:31):
Glen has not been over there. I’ve been trying to get him there, but it’s hard to schedule. Interestingly, Glen has done several auctions in New York, here I’ve been across the world eight times, I’ve never done an auction in New York, and he’s tried to get me to do that, and it comes to scheduling, but we’re just doing our best to serve others, and of course, every day we’re learning.

Bill Dean (02:57):
Yeah. Well, I know I’ve been hearing your voice on some messages on KWLM around the market time, and you guys are very busy this month of November with some terrific auctions and maybe we should touch on a few of those.

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (03:10):
That’d be great. I’m going to run through those auctions. Before I do that, big picture Bill, it’s exciting, overall, the land market has stayed completely steady and very strong. For A and B quality land, we have seen no difference in prices, we have not seen a dip on the hole, even with the rising interest rates for good quality land, it is selling the same, which is pretty interesting, it speaks a lot to the low supply, high demand. The other thing I’m really encouraged by, and of course I can’t say this for all farmers, but on the whole, these yields have been tremendous, what an amazing fall, we’re hearing a fantastic yields. Now, some places have had it tougher than others. I just told my husband, I’m a little bit concerned about going into spring with how dry it is, but we can get wet real quickly with rain and a lot of snow, so I think we need to stay really positive.

(04:12):
But in my land world, things are extremely positive. You’ve heard me say this every month, we don’t feel entitled, we don’t take that for granted, but I’m so thankful that farmland is staying incredibly strong. But that’s right, we have a lot of auctions coming up, we actually have one today here at 11 o’clock in Montevideo, and that will be at the Chophouse in Montevideo, and this is for the Hoff partnership. This is two parcels, and this actually overlooks the Minnesota River Valley, and so a really picturesque area to buy land. Parcel one is 32 acres, parcel two also includes a Lester building and a building site, and that is close to 80 acres, a unique opportunity if anyone is interested in hopping in their car today and heading to Montevideo, we have a wonderful opportunity, and I’ll quickly run through these.

(05:14):
You’ve also heard me say every month, Bill, we fall in love with our sellers real quickly, and I could spend a lot of time saying kind words about the folks that we’re representing, but in general, just wonderful people, people of great character, and we’re so thankful for the opportunity to work with wonderful sellers, but excellent opportunities to buy farmland. Next week, on November 9th, we’re going to be at the Atwater Community Center, that’s an 11 o’clock sale for Julie Hovey and her brother Steve Hedlund, that is a little over 115 acres, most of that being tillable, it’s got a high CPI of a 93.2, this land has tile, just a beautiful farm ready to go to work for you, and so if anyone is interested in farmland in Lake Elizabeth Township, which is a really strong township, matter of fact, that’s the same township that all the Calvary land was sold in, so that’ll be a fun and exciting auction next Wednesday, the ninth.

(06:24):
The following day on the 10th, we’re going to be in Yellow Medicine County in Granite Falls, we have a beautiful two parcel farmland sale for the Velde family, a large family, again, can’t say enough good things about these families that we represent, but parcel two is a wonderful sized parcel, that has 124 tillable acres, and parcel two is 60 tillable acres, parcel one coming in with a very high CPI of a 93.4, this farm has tile, and when my husband and I put the signs up, I said, “Jamie, look at that beautiful farm.” So that’s exciting, that’ll be next Thursday in Granite Falls. Then next Friday, November 11th, sellers that are near and dear to my heart that have since passed away, George, who was better known as Fred and Bessie Klose, we’ve talked about her baking and the legend of Bessie and Fred in the past.

(07:29):
That’s going to be back at the Atwater Community Center, a CPI of an 86, 148 tillable acres, a farm with tile, a farm that the tenants have said it’s ready to go to work for you, high producing farm and a farm to be proud of. Just a few more, Bill. Monday, November 14th, we’re going to be in Pittsburgh for the Weber Dink Family Trust, and I have to say, in my 25 year career, I can count farms this high of quality on probably five fingers, it’s a CPI of a 94.4, it’s 155 tillable acres with an excellent outlet, tile, this Weber Dink farm in Holland Township, it is awesome, if you’re looking for a great farm in that area, don’t miss that sale on November 14th. Okay, November 17th, we’re going to another exciting sale, Chippewa County, and this is 201 tillable acres with an excellent outlet, tile, this is for Janelle Jepson and Steve Johnson.

(08:39):
We’ve had a lot of calls on this farm, including the other farms, but don’t let that scare anyone, oftentimes when I write the purchase agreement, people will say, “I never thought it would be me”, and so we tell folks, “don’t miss the opportunity to pick up great farmland.” Two more quick sales I’m going to talk about. Tuesday, November 29th here, just north of Willmar, the former Buffalo farm for the Arndt family, wow, as far as beauty, words can’t describe the beauty of this farm, parcel one is 116 acres, it’s on lake shore, it’s on Solomon Lake with outbuildings, pasture and hunting land, that’s parcel one, you have to come see it, we have an open house next, Monday the seventh, Saturday the 12th. Parcel two is 72 tillable lakers. The following day we have a three parcel farmland auction in Kimball, our second sale for this family, Bob and Kathy Tenney.

(09:43):
And lastly, I forgot about one more, December 13th, we have 160 acres in Traverse County. I will say that on our website we have excellent drone videos and lots of information. Let us know how we can be helpful. It brings us great joy to serve these families, but Bill, believe it or not, I’m going to be quiet, because I have a special guest with me today. I’m so excited that he said yes. I have my husband of 26 years sitting next to me and we have a love of agriculture. Many times in our conversations we’re talking about farmers and agriculture and we’re talking about our gratefulness for people that work hard to feed this world, and so I’m really excited to have my husband, Jamie with me today, and he’s going to give you a little bit of his passion for agriculture.

Bill Dean (10:42):
Hi Jamie.

Jamie (10:42):
Yeah. Well, thanks.

Bill Dean (10:43):
First of all, you said yes today. When did she say yes? She said 26 years, did you do the asking originally?

Jamie (10:50):
I did. You all know Dale Fladeboe, I had to get it by him first, that was not easy.

Bill Dean (10:57):
I thought Grace might even be tougher than Dale.

Jamie (11:00):
No, she probably was, but in typical Dale fashion, he wanted to keep it quiet from Grace, he wanted to know something before she did.

Bill Dean (11:08):
So how did you guys ever meet? Tell me a little bit about that.

Jamie (11:12):
Oh boy. I met Kristine, knew who she was in high school, I grew up in Pittsburgh, she grew up in Willmar, she’s two years younger than me, so we kind of knew who each other was, but that was about it. And then met her during our college years, she was actually working for Dunnet Construction in the summertime, and that’s how I met. She was working there, and at Melvin’s, which is now Zorbaz on the lake.

Bill Dean (11:41):
Were you one of the flag girls out there getting your sun tan in the summertime?

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (11:46):
I was a flag girl.

Bill Dean (11:49):
Well, and you mentioned Dunnet Construction, now you’re kind of involved with the Prinsco, right?

Jamie (11:55):
Yeah, that’s what I really wanted to visit about a little bit, not necessarily Prinsco, but about what I do kind of connects, Kristine talked a lot about tile and these fields they’re selling and how important water management is, and really when she asked me today, “Do you want to join me?”, the first thing I thought of is, farmers had a really good year this year, challenging spring. It was really wet and challenged to get all the crop in, but then once we hit 1st of June, things changed, we’ve had remarkably warm weather, the growing days, the heat units, things caught up remarkably, you saw that crop go from really small June 10 to tasseling at a normal time, and then really coming out early, and we’re sitting here 1st of November, first part of November, and everything’s pretty much done, even a lot of the tillage.

(12:58):
And what we’re going to see now from my perspective and what I do, is that farmers now, it’s still good weather and they’re going to get out and want to get some other work done, they’re going to want to improve their farm, manage their water, do a little tiling, a lot of farmers have their own equipment to do that, they’re going to be scratching around here until freeze up, and we’ve had such a good run, just wanted to have a safety message around all the importance that happens in agriculture, and there’s a lot in the drainage side, in the water management side too, and that they call 811 before they dig and that they’re out making sure they’re understanding the project before they start. We’ve had such a great run here the last six months, and it would be really tragic to see anyone have even a minor accident, but things happen quickly, there’s large equipment involved, and if there’s an accident, it usually isn’t minor.

Bill Dean (13:59):
We’ve been delivering lunch, Fladeboe Land is one of our lunch break sponsors, and I did notice the remnants of a burned out combine on one of our last trips, so I hadn’t even heard about that, I know it’s been really dry out in the field, so it’s fortunate that there haven’t been… I think there was a fire in southeast Minnesota that kind of got away, or actually the one I’m thinking of was more recently in northwest Minnesota, a grass fire that got away, and I mean, boy, this time of the year when it’s this dry, you got to be very careful.

Jamie (14:30):
Yeah, I had lunch with one of our customers, one of our Prinsco customers yesterday, and he talked about how dry it was and very untypical that in a fall the tile lines aren’t running, you get any rain at all in the fall, they’ll be running, and he said, really, in the last 40 days, he’s only seen two tile lines running and very uncommon, and so I think there is a little bit of concern about what’s going to happen going forward, but as Kristine said, it is dry, but it takes a long time to get dry and it only takes one day to get wet, and we saw that last spring, we had a pretty dry winter and a dry fall last year, and then we got four or five inches of rain overnight in early May, timing wasn’t very good of that from a planting standpoint, but it really helped push us through that first part of the summer with moisture.

Bill Dean (15:29):
Yeah, I’ve noticed some of the drainage ditches themselves, very little water in them, I mean, it’s way down on the bottom depending on where you are, choose some of the lighter soils and so forth, there is more tiling that’s done in some of those instances too, isn’t there, Jamie? Than used to be.

Jamie (15:44):
Yep, for sure. Some of the soils, it just depends on, they look sandy, but they aren’t necessarily all sandy, there’s a lot of clay, clay holds water, we’re getting a lot of great feedback from more of the Red River Valley that’s been so wet in the last over really 20 year period of time, and a lot of saline soils, drainage and water management really improves those soils, so you’ll actually see your CPI on the land go up after a few years of having proper water management in there

Bill Dean (16:19):
It’s really an investment, isn’t it? In the present because of improved, I’m sure, yields and so forth, but then when it comes time to sell, it’s really a key, isn’t it?

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (16:30):
Well, just make a quick comment and we’re not here to have a commercial for Prinsco in the lease, but tile in general, I will say, and I say this with great faith, when a farm is tiled, when a good piece of ground is tiled, we will often see on an acre, if it takes a thousand dollars, give or take, an example, to tile an acre, we will see a return of 2,500 to $4,000 in this market, in this strong market, a thousand dollars an acre, we’ll see a return of 2,500 to $4,000 an acre in the selling price of that acre. Isn’t that incredible?

Bill Dean (17:16):
It is. And then with the market prices now, if you can improve your production, I mean that’s substantial too at this point.

Jamie (17:22):
Yeah, that’s right. She’s just talking about the sale price, but not including the fact that every year you’re going to see a yield increase of 15 to 40% depending on what you had before, and when you’re talking $7 corn and let’s just say a 20% increase on that, that’s really significant.

(17:41):
Another thing I just want to mention is, a couple of years ago I started a podcast, and I really did that because of this topic is very misunderstood, what is tiling? Or is water management and managing the water in the subsurface of agricultural fields? So we’ve explored all kinds of topics, in fact, this week I released my 75th episode and talking to university professionals to land grant universities and industry professionals, to climate people and talking about weather and just a lot of topics to get people a better understanding of what we do and why it’s good for the environment, not bad for the environment, and it’s been a lot of fun, I’ve enjoyed it, but I just wanted to share that and encourage people, if you really wonder what happens and why, what Kristine is saying with land values and going up, why is that? We explore all those topics. I’ve had her on, she’s talked about land values and tiling, so that’s out there, it’s called the Water Table, you can find it, and we have our own website and all the episodes are there.

Bill Dean (18:56):
Yeah. Now it’s a different situation, like say a pattern tile field that’s used for agriculture as opposed to an impervious surface, like say the city of Willmar keeps taring more and cementing over things and the water’s got to go somewhere when you get a hard rain. I mean it’s two different… It’s like apples and oranges, isn’t it a little bit?

Jamie (19:18):
Yeah, for sure. And I think some of the pressure on agriculture when it comes to this is because it’s easier to fix, because you don’t have plants, large agriculture or industrial plants that are pollutants, you don’t have these impervious soils, big cities that are, so if you can manage your water on an agriculture field, it’s much less expensive than doing it in cities, but at Prinsco, and in our industry, we make other products for storm sewer, we make products now that store water, when I try to explain it, we convey water, we treat water, and we store water, all storm water basis, but we do that in agriculture, we also do that in commercial or storm water and residential applications, things like that, and you don’t have to believe in climate to agree that our climate is…

(20:15):
Climate change, you don’t have to believe in that to know that our climate is changing a little bit, just like this year, we had a really wet spring and a drier Fall and we’re seeing these droughts out west. So our industry is really handling a lot of that with some of these storm chambers and holding water back, storing it underground and allowing it to get back into the aquifers, that has nothing to do with agriculture, but it has to do with our cities and our population and keeping water in some of these dry areas in the [inaudible 00:20:48]

Bill Dean (20:48):
It’s critical. It really is. And I think it’s better to be a little bit ahead of the game than trying to play catch up, because some of these large places, like the Phoenix, Vegases of the world, southern California, there’s a lot of people and more want to move there it seems like.

Jamie (21:07):
Yeah, they do. And I get the warm weather part of it, but I think, I’m really excited about living in Minnesota right now, and not just Minnesota, the upper Midwest, I should say. When it comes to where I think our world is going, I think agriculture is going to continue to play, our economy in Willmar and the West Central Minnesota is so wrapped around agriculture and we’re going to have nine billion people in the world here eventually, and to feed all those people, agriculture’s going to have to play such a role, and technology and agriculture for things like, how do we manage our water? How do we manage droughts? You take that and then the fact that Minnesota, we have, it isn’t 10,000 lakes, that’s what we like to say, it’s like 16,000, we have the water, so those are two huge issues in the next 50 years, agriculture and clean water and water, and we’re in a great spot to live and to have a vibrant economy because of it.

Bill Dean (22:10):
Yeah, we are truly blessed, there’s no doubt about that. Well, Kristine, thank you for bringing in your better half today. It was fun to hear from Jamie and what’s the name? The water Table? Is that the name of the podcast?

Jamie (22:21):
Yeah, the Water Table. And Bill, it was fun that I actually talked more than she did on your program for once

Bill Dean (22:27):
The last couple minutes.

Jamie (22:28):
I don’t know if you’ve had a guest do that. So I’m proud to say I’m the first.

Kristine Fladeboe Duininck (22:31):
I will say he is the better half and most definitely sharpens me and I’m super grateful, but I’ll just say for Jamie and I, yes, we love to serve our clients, but I can honestly say for both of us, what brings us equal passion, Bill, if not more, is providing education. He and I are learning every day. We’re going to be learning till the day we leave this earth, but providing education, believing in agriculture, making a difference, that’s what is so exciting about this business. So thank you Jamie for your passion, for joining me, for sharing today, and we love what we do.