Hey, everyone, Mitchell here.

Before we start the show, a huge thank you to the Walton Family Foundation.

Thanks for the continued support this season.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to the fieldwork podcast.

Mitchell, Hora, here with you.

And I'm actually out on kind of a field trip here today.

Todd, our producer, and I'm actually out on kind of a field trip here today. Todd, our producer,

and I went out to Central Ohio, and we are hanging out at Dave Brandt's farm for Dave Brands Field Day.

And Dave Brandt is one of the original no-till cover cop guys who's been doing it for forever.

This episode here now, though, is really special because Ray Archeletta is one of the speakers at Dave's Field Day.

We grabbed Ray after he gave his talk.

Ray is, they call him Ray the soil guy.

And Ray has spoke all over the world teaching farmers about soil health.

He taught me a lot about soil health and so many other farmers. Ray was with the NRCS, now Ray's a rancher down in southwest Missouri, and now he's

being able to really practice what he preaches. But I think you'll really enjoy our episode here as we

dig into the why and the concepts behind this. Enjoy our chat here today as we're tuning in from

Dave's seed shed. A lot of fun hanging out with Ray. I think you guys will really enjoy this

episode too. Ray, we've known each other for a while now. You've been a key mentor and leader for me, and I thank you for that.

And you've been showing all these farmers. You just got off stage. We're at Dave Brantzfield Day as we're recording this here now.

And your number one message to these farmers is cover the soil. Why is that number one? Let's start there. Why cover the soil?

Well, thank you, Mitch. I think it's neat to see that young people like you are going to take the baton and pass it for the future because it's so important about regeneration, about healing the planet. Why is it's so important to cover the ground? You know, I've learned through time that if the message is not simple,

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