Andrew Wedel & Brock Vetick
62 episodes listed below
Practical sustainability talk for working agriculture.
Sustaining The Herd treats sustainability as working agriculture, not an abstract slogan. Andrew Wadel and Brock Vitek talk through air and water protection, manure systems, on-farm research, and the difficult choices behind new technology.
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Sustaining The Herd treats sustainability as something producers have to make work. It stays close to the farm. The show is built around animal agriculture, but its recent conversations reach into crop research, landowner revenue, feedlot innovation, and the wider systems that shape agricultural decisions. Andrew Wadel and Brock Vitek keep the tone conversational, with enough joking to make the technical material feel lived-in rather than formal. The core question is simple: what does sustainability look like when it has to protect air and water, fit an operation, and survive a budget? That makes the show useful. Episodes often return to the idea that new products and systems should be judged carefully before producers commit money, time, or trust. The technology discussions are especially grounded. Anaerobic digestion is treated as a manure management system with defined performance expectations, not just a buzzworthy project. Manure pumps, solid separators, and other equipment get discussed through parameters, flow rates, recovery, and adoption risk. There is room for blunt lessons about innovation, including the possibility that a promising tool leaves someone with little more than an empty wallet. The show also widens its lens. A conversation with Adam Lisey from the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network points to farmer-led projects involving corn hybrids, seeding evaluation, sensor-based nitrogen management, satellite imagery, cover crops, and nitrate reduction. Another episode brings in Eric Dinger of LandOption to talk about finding sustainability value for producers and landowners. John Schrader from DAR Feedlots gives the show a feedlot-scale perspective, connecting sustainability and innovation to a commercial feedlot. Across these episodes, Sustaining The Herd sounds less like advocacy and more like applied decision support. It assumes agriculture already contains deep habits of reuse, adaptation, and practical recycling, then asks how newer tools can fit that reality. The result is a niche but valuable show for listeners who want sustainability explained in the language of producers, engineering teams, research networks, and operational tradeoffs.
Made for: Built for livestock producers, agricultural advisors, landowners, and farm technology decision-makers who want sustainability tied to operational reality. It also suits listeners tracking manure systems, on-farm research, and producer-centered innovation.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by testing sustainability ideas against farm-level adoption, equipment performance, research value, and producer economics. It favors practical skepticism over broad slogans.
Sustaining the Herd is a resource for all things related to sustainability in animal agriculture. We hope to deliver value to listeners by interviewing industry leaders as well as producers involved in sustainability projects. Every two weeks, we'll give a practical perspective on new technologies as well as new rules and regulations affecting the adoption of sustainability-related technologies such as anaerobic digestion and the production of renewable energy.
A cow wants sand and 14 hours in bed; your next farm decision gets equally practical scrutiny.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A plainspoken look at producer-focused research, from board funding to field-level questions.
Episode 46 gives a clear, practical view of how the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network works with producers. Andrew Adel and Brock Vitek talk with Adam Lisey about the boards that fund the work and about sustainability as protecting air and water while agriculture keeps moving…
A practical look at how agricultural producers can judge innovation before it strains the budget.
Agricultural innovation comes through here as a question of judgment: how producers decide which technologies, products, and systems are worth their time before money is committed.
Practical stories from working farm life.
Stephen Dubner tests bourbon economics, Alzheimer's research, and money advice against hard data.
Daily business news with Kai Ryssdal, tracking Fed policy, oil shocks, and private credit.
Galloway rotates Office Hours Q&A, Raging Moderates politics, and China Decode geopolitics weekly.
Joel and Matt answer listener money questions weekly in the show's Ask HTM segments.
Andrew Wadel and Brock Vitek interview Jimmy Hagee of Hutchison and Associates about financial, relational, operational, and environmental sustainability in agriculture.
Hosts discuss sustainability in animal agriculture, focusing on protecting air and water and adopting renewable energy technologies.
Sustaining The Herd hosts Andrew Waddle and Brock Vitek interview LandOption founder Eric Dinger about matching agricultural producers with more than 2,500 sustainability and land-revenue programs.
Sustaining the Herd episode 46 centers on Adam Lisey and the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network, with Andrew Adel and Brock Vitek steering the discussion for Sechi Agri-Services and Engineering.
Andrew Wadel and Brock Vitek of Sustaining The Herd examine how agricultural producers should evaluate technologies, products, and innovations before adopting them.
On Sustaining The Herd, Andrew Wadel interviews Dr.
Zach Sechi says 90-plus percent of RCC failures are not the concrete itself but what's underneath it.
This episode features a discussion with John Schrader from DAR Feedlots about innovation and sustainability practices in cattle feeding, continuing from a previous interview.