2023 Year in Review with Guest Joel Kaczynski

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Tony Kramer - Hi, I'm Tony Kramer, your host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast, and I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this episode, Joel Kaczynski and I sit down and chat about the 2023 season of podcast episodes. We're going to dive in a little bit, give you our thoughts on some of the topics we discussed over the last year and just chat a little on where we see the technology industry within agriculture going today and tomorrow. With that, let's dive into the show. Joel, welcome aboard the podcast. Thanks for sitting down with me. We are finishing up year eight of production. This is eight years of the RDO Agriculture Technology Podcast. 2024 is going to move us into production year number nine or season number nine, however you want to look at it. But yeah, really exciting times. Thank you to all the listeners out there. Everybody that has liked and subscribed, shared this show with your friends. We wouldn't be able to do this without you. Now, with that, Joel, first thing I want to do is introduce or have you introduce yourself. Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, where you came from, what you do with RDO, and how you got to where you are today.

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, thanks, Tony. Super excited to be on here today. I can't believe it's been eight years that we've been on this. Yeah, a little background on myself. I've been in the egg business my entire career, really my entire life, growing up on a farm in Southeast North Dakota. My parents, my family, my grandparents on both sides of the family, all farmed. I've always been engaged with the technology too. I've been passionate about it, how it can improve our lives. So it's kind of interesting where I'm at today with it. So I've been here with RDO Equipment for 19 years. So it was 2004 when I started the company. And I've worked with Tony. It's kind of interesting we're doing a podcast 'cause we talk every day about this stuff. And we need to share some of our conversations that we have 'cause this is just natural for what we talk about all the time. And it does warm my heart too that this podcast is still going. I give kudos to Nate Dorsey. This is one of the ideas he threw at me of starting this podcast. Eyes all over it because I felt as a way to reach more listeners and be engaged in the technology, in the egg space. And Tony just has continued this. And the breadth of listeners that we have with this and how I'll run into people just randomly that know this and hear Tony and they say, "Do you know Tony?" He's like, "Oh yeah, I know Tony." So it's really neat. And so I'm very honored to be on the podcast and be part of it today.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, well, thank you very much. Yeah, again, kudos to Mr. Nate Dorsey. He did a great thing by starting this podcast. And I too saw the value in it. I wanted to keep it rolling and just keep talking. And like you said, the breadth of listeners that we reach with this is amazing. So, and again, without you listeners, this wouldn't be possible. We see the value here at RDO Equipment. We see the value in sharing this information through the podcast. I just wanted to go through essentially our list of episodes, Joel, and kind of talk, get your take on the value you see in some of these technologies or how it's changed the agriculture landscape. So getting started at the beginning of the 2023 season, I myself, I didn't have a guest on the show, but I dove into conversations about on-farm trials. So doing, whether you're a large farm, you're a small scale, you're in between, doesn't matter. We talked about the value of knowing and understanding your farm, whether it be partnering with your John Deere dealer or just learning on your own. I wanna hear your thoughts, Joel, on where is the value here? We see trial data from extension agencies, input companies, whoever it may be out there in the ag industry, but where do you see the value in these local trials, these on-farm, know your land, know your crop type stuff?

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, thanks, Tony. It takes me back to actually when I started in the industry as an intern, putting in a corn and soybean variety plot, test plot. And so that was my first exposure to it. But even going back before that, you look at how farmers make decisions on their farming operations. It's a variety of ways. And also the unique thing in the ag industry is you can physically drive around and see what's happening. You can see what the neighbor's doing. You may not see every single pass, but you drive by the field every day. Hey, it looks really good, or it looks really bad. And you talk to another neighbor, the quote unquote coffee shop talk, and you kind of learn, you know? And the farming, the ag community is very much that way, that social looking, seeing, always wanting to improve what you're doing. And you can continually do that by watching what others do. These field trials, though, goes beyond just visual, how things will look, to actual data, to where it really makes a farm profitable or not. And that's where, that's the key, what I see with doing the field trials. And in today's age, with the cost of inputs, and in our area, with the cost of equipment, our customers need to know what that return on their investment's going to be. And doing these field trials help us identify what that ROI could potentially be for our customers, and help them make that decision around it, 'cause we want, they need to pay off for 'em when they make a decision to add a new technology or buy a new piece of equipment that's going to enhance their productivity in a number of different ways.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, and we, I think, like I mentioned in the episode, there are a lot of this equipment, when it comes to the precision egg displays and GPS receivers, we're already collecting a lot of the data that can be utilized to make those educated decisions. So it's just a matter of implementing year over year, I mean, one basic trial, something that a grower wants to learn about what they're doing on the farm.

Joel Kaczynski - I look at where we're going with RDO equipment and some of the tools that John Deere's developing for us to utilize to help our customers in those decisions. But one of them is with the agronomy analyzer. We look at what the egg industry and different companies have leveraged that on-farm field trials and the replicated ones. One of the difficult things for replication, though, is really putting it all together at the end of the year and make it relevant to a certain environment and situation that resonates with our customer base. And one of the things that with John Deere developing the agronomy analyzer tool gives us ability to make those replicated field trials across a large area. It can bring it into a regional area and leverage the entire dealer network of John Deere as well with that. So I see a lot of potential opportunity. We've been leveraging some of that as that platform has grown, but I really see that as a potential game changer to really get us the numbers behind these trials that we're doing. And a lot of 'em are focused around the technology that is coming out, so.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, absolutely. And that actually reminded me that how we're collecting the data and the time and the replication or replicated trials, replicated treatments, that was actually something after I recorded this episode in the beginning of 2023, we executed a trial with a customer of ours down in South Dakota. And one of the comments that the customer made was what excited him the most about us partnering with him and doing these trials is he kind of said, "You know, we want to learn, but we just don't have the time. We don't have the manpower, the resources to execute some of this stuff." So for that customer to partner with RDO, partner with your local John Deere dealer to help execute a trial like this, collect the data, we as a dealership can learn, but the customer too can learn on what's going on there. So yeah, a lot of things can be done, a lot of great stuff. I want to move on to the next episode or the next talking point. This one really excites me. We at RDO Equipment, we got to be very close to this product prior to its launch and release, but I am talking about John Deere's ExactShot. So ExactShot, pulsing fertilizer only on the seed, in the furrow, on your planter, super exciting, great things to come with this technology. I want to hear your take, Joel, on ExactShot and where you see this growing to into the future.

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, I will say the first time that Tony told me about this new technology coming, I thought, no way, how in the world when you're putting on 30,000 plus seeds per acre that we're gonna be able to put that fertilizer exactly on that and you're going, especially with the increased speeds on the planter as well, it just adds to the challenge of doing that. But seeing is believing and being part of that product development and getting the data behind it, really that's what we need to see to prove that the technology is working, that we are getting that product on the seed where it needs to be. And that's one of the things too, that when we look at that space of putting product on at planting, there's a number of things that we look at. Number one is the amount of refilling you need to do, that it slows down the planting progress of it. So if we have the ability to potentially reduce the amount to get that next to the seed where it needs to be is one huge advantage. And then secondly is there may be times you're using a product that cost-wise, whatever, you reduce an amount and that's not getting where it needs to be. And there's probably more value behind it, but that's what I just seen right off the bat, looking at that technology.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, it was great to work with. It was great to see. I'm very excited to see ExactShot get out into customers' hands, into the wild. I know coming here 2024, crop season 2024, we are going to see a couple of those products out there. So that is very exciting. Moving on to the next one, Joel, kind of unique to you and I being here in Minnesota and the Dakotas. We don't necessarily get to see this product, but we got to show some love for our Washington, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, our Southwest, and California, Arizona. RDO Equipment Company has locations in all of those states out there. And we do, from time to time, we try to get as much information in all the different ag avenues that we can. And so SmartApply, Joel, we got these sprayers. We've got sprayers in orchards and vineyards, and it's such a unique piece of the industry because it's not your typical John Deere self-propelled sprayer. It's not a short line type, pull type sprayer, or whatever it may be. These are unique. Well, I guess it is a short line pull type sprayer, but they're unique. So SmartApply, being able to monitor the crop that it's going through, sensing that biomass or crop density and applying where and when it needs to apply. Let me know, I want to hear your thoughts on this again, because it's kind of unique to the region of the United States we're in and where RDO has a geographical footprint.

Joel Kaczynski - In my time working in the technology space here, I've spent extensive time in both our regions in the Southwest, as well as the Northwest. And one of the things looking at the diversity of what we have in those areas, it's complex for John Deere to bring technology to those areas that resonate with them. So when ExactApply first started being developed, I believe John Deere partnered with that company, and they've did this with a number of companies over the years around the technology where they see something that could potentially be integrated into the John Deere ecosystem. And they work together with that company to help develop and a lot of times our APIs with bringing the data into our operation center that they help work towards too. And that one had a lot of unique things like with the API and also the technology around using LiDAR to sense the amount of mass around the crop that it was spraying, either the orchard or the vineyard. So it was just exciting to see John Deere's openness and also see an opportunity for that. And this spring I was able to see it firsthand, traveled out to the Northwest. We had a system set up and they were spraying hops. And hops as they grow, they're low to the ground and they increase the size throughout the year. So it could sense and know exactly where those hops were at, what stage you're at, and just apply the product right onto where it needed to be. So I know that the orchard vineyard growers that we work with are super excited to see some technology come into that space because they really haven't had a lot when we look at what's been going on in that space. There's opportunity in there, not only with Smart Apply, but also looking at some of the autonomous type equipment that we're working with as well in that space.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, that's really cool. And I always forget about those hop yards. I mean, who doesn't love a good beverage, a good beer? We need those hops somehow. So to hear that you got to experience, you get to witness Smart Apply in a hop yard as it was actually applying is really cool. We think vineyards and orchards and all that other stuff, but yeah, the hops are another one that we got to remember. So really cool technology. And to your point, Joel, John Deere's initiative to bring technology to some of the avenues of the ag industry that may not have that technology. It just goes to show John Deere's commitment to growing the technology and bringing this to the producers in a large scale, large spectrum. Moving on to the next one, Data Sync. So Data Sync was something that was released mid 2023 season. Very cool, very unique technology. Being able to share essentially setup data or what we used to refer to as setup data. We would build a setup file in the operation center. We would get it out to the display. Today, we have the option. We can do setup files, we can do planned work files, or we can do, well, I shouldn't say or, I said and/or Data Sync. And that is taking all of that setup data, your machines, your implements, client farm field, all that type of stuff, and it shares it display to display, display to operation center, operation center to display. It shares it all seamlessly, real-time, automatically. I want to hear your thoughts on how this is changing the ag industry when it comes to clean or good data collection in terms of display setup.

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, this is one that it's been in the works for quite a while, Mike, and I heard about where they're going with it. It also, it probably made me nervous as well, Eric, 'cause knowing that you're going to have to have things very cleanly set up. Lot of operation centers where it takes a lot of, it takes time to keep things organized in there. And if you aren't getting your field boundaries in and getting things, getting your client farm field set up properly and have things the way that you need to be, it could be potentially, if you flip data sync on, it could be a disaster, really. I mean, you could have stuff not right. But on the flip side, the benefits of it and really making your lives easier of managing a large-scale farm or even any size operation where everything is synced. So it's no longer a lot more easier for you may have operators that aren't as, that maybe it's a new operator coming into that you're a higher man you brought on or higher person you brought on. And it just makes things simpler for them all the way around. And we're continually, it's funny you brought up data sync 'cause I actually just asked the question this morning if we know what customers are using it today. That's the number one thing is just making sure we have good, clean setup of the entire organization prior to turning data sync on. And then just helping the customer understand what it does. If somebody is going to make one change in the display and can they do something wrong and delete everything across the organization? No, they can't. But again, it's those things that we need to really help our customers understand and help them along. 

Tony Kramer - Yeah, you're absolutely right there. And I know when I sat down with Jackson Lane and we talked about data sync, he stressed that you want to make sure things are clean. You want to make sure you understand data sync. And you're absolutely right that there could be instances where if you have a bunch of, let's say garbage guidance lines that maybe every time the tillage tractor goes out, they just make a new guidance line because it's easy. That's simple. There are some scenarios with data sync that you want to be aware of, that you want to be on top of having clean data, making sure you understand how the flow of that data works. But if you do understand that, if you do have good clean data, efficiency. It not having to do, not having to take the time to do a setup file, whether you do or do not want to utilize work planner planned work, there's just so much behind the ease, the simplicity, the efficiency when it comes to data sync, sharing that data across your fleet and across the operation center.

Joel Kaczynski - And I don't know if I ever put a pencil to it, but you think about the effort that it would take to on the front side to get everything all correct what you want in there before in, versus on the backside, the amount of time you're spending if you don't have data sync turned on. Just knee jerk, I know that it'd be a big number, the amount of time and effort spent if you don't have data sync turned on versus when you do have it turned on.

Tony Kramer - Absolutely, and we up here in the Midwest or Minnesota and the Dakotas, we get the opportunity, we have a downtime. We got a season called the winter; we get some white stuff on the ground. Now, that being said, here we are recording this actually December 18th in Fargo, North Dakota, and there is no snow on the ground. It is, well, I guess it's 12 degrees right now, but I think North Dakota or the Fargo area, Christmas is set to be like 35 degrees, 40 degrees, something like that. So regardless where I was going with that is some areas of the United States or some areas of the world, I should say, have downtime. They have an off season, and that's the great time to work with your operation center, get it clean, get it ready to go. Now, those of you in areas of the world where you're farming year-round, there really isn't much downtime. Collecting clean data, having clean setup data, it all comes into efficiency and being able to continually move forward. So great technology, awesome release of the product or the digital product, I should say, throughout the 2023 season. Now, another one, and these last couple are gonna kind of be bundled up a little bit, but another big release that came out 2023 was the G5 family of displays. And with that, I was out in the field at our field technology days, got to sit down in the cab of a Gator with product specialist, Jared Roloffs, and we talked about the G5 displays, but we also talked about boundaries and the importance of boundaries moving forward. So first, let's talk about the G5 displays and how awesome those things are.

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, we just started shipping here, what, in November, I believe. Maybe we got a couple at the end of October of displays. So we, I don't know, in the, what do you call it, the upper Midwest?

Tony Kramer - Yeah, there we go, there we go, the north Midwest. Yeah, upper Midwest, there we go.

Joel Kaczynski - To really get them in the field this spring, we'll definitely see the guys that are using them. But yeah, it's the next evolution of a platform of displays from John Deere and bringing the latest technology advancements in the G5. So it's exciting to see it continually develop and technology that comes in there. And the boundaries is a big one when we look at machine automation, where it's at today and where it's going into the future here. And historically also, anybody out there who's been working with these virtual boundaries of their fields knows the complexity of it. And it's kind of a love-hate relationship as well. They can be getting love on some days and other days when you got internal boundaries and they're shutting your planter off because the lower area they didn't see the year before and didn't get it updated and it's shutting your planter off. Yeah, it can be your Achilles heel that day. So, and it's like complexity that the industry is trying to figure out, try to, you know, and it's taken effort from, at all levels from the equipment dealers and the support that we do to our customers, to their agronomists or their ag retailers that are working with their boundaries and so on and so forth. And trying to understand how do we best manage them? How do you change them on the go? Because they are gonna be something to be very important when autonomous vehicles come out, they need to know where that boundary is at. And knowing how to manage them year to year and have some set up, you know, it's something you need to really think through. If you do it after the fact, it takes considerably more effort versus before it. 'Cause we see a lot of times where up here, sometimes we don't always get the entire field planted, And, or you may not know how much we can get planted. of one crop. You may have to do of corn, they may have switched to soybeans and other areas, but yet historically have always formed as one field and just adds to the complexity of it. And where we work with egg retailers are trying to do variable rate fertilizer and the boundaries required in order to know, hey, how many acres do I have in that field? And to apply for the product to bring out of there of the unique blend of fertilizer may be bringing out. Well, if you don't really know how many, you know, the line changes a little bit because of a wet area, what is the actual acres we have in here? So those are some of the complexities, but on the flip side, got to experience a firsthand with making a high quality boundary and using headland, create our headland right off of that boundary. And I was harvesting this in our demo field here this fall and the individual riding with me, I was trusting, I completely trusted. I think Jackson drove the exterior boundary with a Starfire 7000. And I trusted that, that was spot on. And we're working and as coming along the headland, what do we have a 45-foot head on that?

Tony Kramer - Yeah, 40-foot head on that one.

Joel Kaczynski - 40 foot head on that one. Yeah, good, see, I didn't even know. So I could have been hitting on or off, right? But anyway, we were probably, it seemed like we're probably inches away from that REA pole but I know we planted that field with it and I trusted it. And the individual was riding with me, he's like, "Oh, you're going to hit it, you're going to hit it." It's like, "You got to trust the technology." And yeah, we went right by it. And again, you need that high quality boundary, right? And to be driven during that year, some things change, maybe who knows, maybe the neighbor put something up that was closer that wasn't there before they were able to plant next to. But that just adds to the complexity, right? But using it, boy, it's a game changer to just not have to steer that first pass and what's coming in the future when it comes to AutoPath and looking at a potential AutoPath off of our boundary line. We're going to need a good quality boundary there, so.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, you really hit it when you made the comment about boundaries are something that you need to proactively think about. It's not just something that we need to kind of leave in the background and be like, "Oh yeah, we'll get a boundary," or, "Oh, we have a boundary." It's the good quality boundaries and really thinking about them and making a plan. Like you said, the boundary-filled guidance line, utilizing that. I got the opportunity to do that exact same thing with the planter when we were out there planting our demo fields in South Dakota. And again, trusting when you got a 60-foot planter behind you, trusting that it's not going to catch that fence post, trusting that it's not going to catch that tree, and it did. It worked great. There was nothing that I had to worry about as I was going through that boundary or along that boundary. So it's really cool to hear that you experienced similar in the combine when we were out there harvesting the soybeans. It is a wow factor. When you have a good, high-quality boundary, like we said, Jackson was out there. He drove it with a Precision Ag integrated gator. So the new gators with the full cab, everything is plug-and-play with the correct harnesses and brackets. He had a Starfire 7000 up top. He had the, I'm not sure if it was a G5 at that point. I think it was just a 4640. He drove that, got good, high-quality boundaries. So yes, again, very important between the G5 displays, the importance of boundaries. It just, there's so much that goes into it. It's not just today, but it's also forward-looking when you made the comment about autonomy and everything there. So great information. Again, all of this information that Joel and I are talking about here, we had a podcast episode on it throughout the 2023 calendar year. So I invite you to go back, take a listen to these. Now, I want to wrap up here, Joel. There's two episodes left, but we're going to kind of bundle them together just because they both live in the same realm, the hay and forage industry, or hay and forage corner of the ag industry. And I just want to touch on the technology that has been integrated over time. There's a lot of pieces of the ag industry that really took off fast with technology, be it planters, application equipment, combines, but there's certain pieces of the ag industry that it was still more just a manual process. There wasn't a lot of data being collected because maybe they didn't know what data needed to be out there. Maybe they didn't see the value in it. But moving forward, the hay and forage, so we had the forage harvester episode with Jason Arts, and then we had the baler technology episode with Jesse Santillan. So go back, listen to those episodes, but I want to hear your take, Joel, on the hay and forage industry and how the continued drive to integrate technology is going to help those types of farmers, whether they're a dairy or they're a custom baler, custom forage harvester, things like that. How can this data, how can these sensors and data collection help them grow their business?

Joel Kaczynski - When we look at the livestock production, whether it's dairy or beef, one of the things I recognize talking to some of the herd managers or the manager of one of the ranches, their mindset is unique compared to a grain farmer. Their passion and their knowing and understanding is around that herd, around that animal. And it's not necessarily as intimate with the equipment compared to a grain farmer who's out there running the equipment. The dairymen, don't get me wrong, they do run the equipment, but their connection is to the livestock. So what we've been seeing is, and it may be the technology has entered that space a little later than it has on the large grain area, but the opportunity is there. And you see a lot of technology coming into, look at our dairies, what's going on too in the milk production and in the beef production. When we look at what's coming into with the baler technology and the forest harvester and be able to understand, certainly can understand the nutrient value of the corn silage you're putting up and/or when you look at the bales, the potential there with bale documentation just coming out for round balers, and we've been exposed to some of it with our large square balers. There's a lot of potential there. First starts off with just documenting what we're doing. It's interesting 'cause I was just driving home this weekend from hunting out in Montana and my partner that I hunted with, he's got a beef herd and he was just talking about, he was baling, and he mentioned about the different types of net wrap they have and different colors. And he goes, "It'd be really nice if I could pick out, I know this, maybe I'm baling some CRP or prairie hay and I get an area that maybe has some cattails or some lower production type stuff and I'd really like to mark that bale." So he had a unique way, he was using bale wrap and he had throw twine on that one so he knows it's lower quality. I'm thinking in my head is like, boy, we're that close to be able to just document that bale virtually and to know they're higher quality, lower quality or maybe it's a moisture thing as we're documenting this moisture. So I think, I just really feel we're just at the cusp of that as we see this technology integrated into our round balers that John Deere is doing. But I look at some of the stuff, technologies that's been implemented in our cotton business. So there's a lot of opportunity there but when you can make that tie for that herd manager or that ranch manager to tie the quality of the feed that their animals are receiving and they know what that is, that's where you make that tie, that I feel that tie is made and the emphasis of, hey, we need this technology on it to help improve our herd and so, yeah, I really see, I feel that what we're putting in the equipment right now is we're just at the cusp of it.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, everything from the constituent sensing on the forage harvesters and knowing the nutrients that's in that silage to the baler technology, like you said, I almost, the story you told about being able to monitor your bales based on quality or something. I mean, I look at that and the first thing that popped in my mind was like a variety locator for bales and being able to go back and be like, well, no, okay, that part of the field, we changed the quote unquote variety because we just know that it's a lower quality than the other area of the field or whatever you may be doing. So really cool to hear that the cattlemen out there are even thinking about that, that they want ways to better document, they want ways to learn and grow similar to a grain farmer, similar to your corn and soy, your small grains, whatever it may be. The ag industry is continuing to grow and giving the hay and forage more technology to work with, more information to learn from to be able to make educated decisions off of what they're doing. So to wrap this up, Joel, before we go, I want to hear one last thing from you. I always enjoy, like you said at the beginning of this show, you and I, we sit down almost on a daily basis just chatting about some of this stuff. So to get our thoughts on the podcast and everything, I want you to answer one last question. What are you most excited about with your whole career throughout agriculture, like you said? And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on is because of your experiences, your knowledge, all the different things you've done in the ag industry and your love and passion for the technology. Going forward, what are you most excited about when it comes to some of these new technologies? Maybe it's something old that's getting revamped or more heavily adopted. What excites Joel Kuczynski about technology in the ag industry?

Joel Kaczynski - Boy, to put it on, to put one thing, Tony, I'm going to name a couple.

Tony Kramer -  That's fine, that is fine.

Joel Kaczynski - First off, I'll first stay with autonomy, right? Number one, continually hear about the labor shortages, that trying to find a good operator for your farm to run your equipment. And it's getting harder and harder to find that. And secondly, just look at how that technology could potentially impact the farm. And John Deere released their autonomous tillage. They showed it off at CES. And that's getting closer to production, right? It has potentially a huge game changer, but also it's gonna change the way that our customers, they need to look at how it's gonna impact their operation as well. To continue to do things the way you traditionally did them with having a human being running the tractor versus nobody in there. But I think about how it's a technology that can help both large farms, medium-sized farms, small farms. When I think of somebody with a medium to small, where maybe they wanna catch their kid's basketball game or football game that evening, and can get their tractor running, going in the field to get that field worked and prepped for the next day while they're enjoying their kid's game. And secondly, I look at, especially in our area here, our window of opportunity to get things done in the right timing. It has a huge economic impact if you don't. And knowing that we can utilize more hours of the day to get things done potentially, has the potential to be a huge game changer. The other one is just looking at the technology coming out that's reducing our inputs, right? When we look at the seed and spray sprayer, applying spray just where the weed is at, or whatever you're targeting. And also, we already talked about the exact shot and looking that we're putting less product down on our field, which gives, from a consumer perspective, a very positive thing where you're reducing the amount of what's going on. And also from our customers, reducing the amount of inputs that they're putting on their field to get the same production and/or more production of it. So just super exciting to see those technologies come to fruition and what the challenge that'll bring both us as a dealer and to our customers and overcoming those hurdles as those technologies are developed. So it's just an exciting time to be part of it. A lot of it, again, thrown at us, but it does excite me because those challenges are what makes us better, right? And there's going to be some days where things aren't working well with integrating those technologies in it. But I've seen, from looking in the past, looking at AutoTrack coming on and the difference that made to our customers and not just from being more efficient, but just less stress. And we all know we have enough of that today, especially what our customers are being burdened with. But I just look at that and then looking forward how it just continues to develop. And those are probably my two top hitters I'll put out there right now.

Tony Kramer - Yeah, like you said, very exciting times to be in the ag industry. The technologies that are out there, some of them yet to come, but a lot of good things, a lot of good information. Joel, I wanna thank you for taking the time to sit down with me. Every topic that we discussed was an episode in the 2023 podcast season. So I invite you to go back, have a listen if you haven't already, or listen again if you'd like to. But again, thank each and every one of you for listening to the show, sharing us with your friends, the subscribers, the people that comment, the people that reach out to us and say, "Hey, we really enjoy the show," or whatever it may be, big, big thank you to each and every one of you. So thanks again for doing this, Joel. I couldn't have thought of a better person to sit and chat through this here at the end of the 2023 season.

Joel Kaczynski - Yeah, thanks, Tony. I just want to give kudos to you as well and the positive impact that you're making on the ag industry with doing this podcast. And also, again, to all the listeners out there and engaging with it, 'cause it is very much a community when it comes to this, to the ag space. And it's just great to be engaging with it and continue improving everybody's lives with it and being engaged with conversations like this. So thank you, Tony, and thank you to our listeners.

Tony Kramer - All right, that wraps up this show. As I ended last year, I will end again. There we have it. The 2023 RDO Agriculture Technology Podcast has come to a close. Please make sure to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. You can subscribe to the show on the many different podcasting apps that we're streaming this out to. We've got it on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, as well as many others. While you're out there, drop us a review. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. And finally, make sure to follow RDO Equipment Company on Facebook, Instagram, and X, and catch all of our latest videos on YouTube. You can also follow me on X @rdotonyk.