22. Coffee, GMOs, and Defaulting Towards Life w/ Dr. Kerry Mayfield

Coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. Coffee coffee. Coooofffffeeeeee!

Ok so on this episode, I talk with Dr. Kerry Mayfield about plant breeding, his awesome coffee roasting business (have I mentioned that I love coffee), traveling the world, the ethics and philosophy of science, and so much more awesome stuff. We couldn't nearly fit everything we wanted to cover into an hour or less, so we'll just have to have Kerry back on one day to chat again. Enjoy today's wonderful episode and don't forget to default towards life!

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker : 0:00

What's up plant people. Today is Tuesday, July the 21st 2020. And this is another episode of the plant apology podcast The show where we dive into the lives, careers and passions of some really cool plant people. This is Vikram Baliga your host back for another episode. If I sound sleepy, it's because I submitted my dissertation this past Sunday, and will be defending my dissertation a week from tomorrow on the 29th. And so if you're the type of person that does such things, any prayers or good vibes or happy thoughts about 1pm central standard time in the US today, on Wednesday, the 29th will be so much appreciated. I might, on the next episode get to introduce myself as Dr. Vikram Baliga. I think that I'll do exactly once. But yeah, so I'm tired. I haven't slept in a while. And if I sound sleepy today, it's also because I have not had enough coffee today. Which is a great segue. In today's episode, we'll be talking a lot about coffee. As well as GMOs, science, plant breeding, and all kinds of other great stuff before we do that a couple things. So first I had said that I was doing a giveaway for the person that came up with the best story for the one star rating. I got on iTunes without a review and the only person that entered so he definitely wins is my buddy Paul chomo from the varmints podcast, which is just a wonderfully great show that you should be listening to. For sure go check out a varmints podcasts on anywhere that you can get a podcast and I know you're really going to love it because animals are great and Paul and Donna are great. You should be listening but he says that I got a one star rating from a disgruntled lumberjack who did not like how favorably we were talking about trees. I think that's about as a reasonable as anything. So Paul, you've got some swag coming your way sometime soon. Also, our two partners are pecan ridge and the local lbk both Lubbock based businesses. If you go to pecan ridge.com, you can order all kinds of great pecan themed merchandise, local cool stuff, buy a bunch of great local businesses, you can get your pecan show, you can get little pecan pies all things because all the time, the cotteridge.com use the promo code, plant people at checkout for 10% off your order. Also, go check out a local ob k.com. If you're a Lubbock kind of human, that is the very best way to get great discounts on all kinds of community, businesses and organizations and you will really be helping out our community by joining for just $5 a month, you'll get a online login through an app you can get a card and all kinds of businesses around town honor it so it's great. You need to be a part of local ob K. So I'm gonna go ahead and jump in today's episode. So I sat down a little while ago, it was one of my first in person interviews that I've done in quite some time actually because of pandemic times, and all That but I interviewed Dr. Carrie Mayfield who is by training and past profession, a plant breeder who's worked in corn and sorghum and a bunch of other things. And who now is a rock star coffee roaster. His his work is great. He brought me a couple of bags of coffees when he came in. He owns trs, trs, I have to learn to roll my RCS planus Coffee Roasters, which means flatlands coffee, and I wanted to bring him on because I love coffee. Clearly, if you've ever met me or know anything about me, you know how much I love coffee. But also I wanted to talk about coffee from a an environmental standpoint. And you've probably read that coffee is going away because of climate change. And we address that and we talk about traditional plant breeding and some of the controversy surrounding GMOs and the philosophy of science. And this is just a wonderful, fun episode chock full of great conversation and great science content that I know you're getting Love. So buckle up, tie your shoes, put on your favorite hat. Grab a warm or cold cup of delicious coffee and get ready for Episode 22 of the planet apology podcast with Dr. Carrie Mayfield.

Unknown Speaker : 4:21

All right, well, we are alive and I'm here with Carrie Mayfield. The owner of Tyrus. Okay, I'm gonna say this wrong. Tyrus. planus, you got part of it? Right. Okay.

Unknown Speaker : 4:31

You just need to roll the or so to discipline us.

Unknown Speaker : 4:34

Okay. Yeah, I'm not good at that. So he's a plant breeder, a PhD, a coffee, roaster, all kinds of other stuff. So thanks for being on with me.

Unknown Speaker : 4:42

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here with you. It's been an interesting career that I've had over the past 2026 27 years or so since I started working in different fields, mainly plant breeding. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 4:56

Well, and and so we kind of we kind of got connected I guess through social media. actually think through Dylan. Maybe Dylan, maybe Dylan

Unknown Speaker : 5:03

actually goes back further than that. Okay, so you remember at Calvary baptist church or attended Calvary Baptist? Yeah. A long time ago. Yeah. I think it was right about the time we moved up here in 2010. Okay, and so we do know some of the same people from there. Okay. And so I remember a couple years ago, seeing you pop up on something and going, who's that my wife going? You don't remember them? Like, no, I'm sorry. But the time I was gone a lot, still finishing up my PhD at that point, and then having a full time job in the commercial sector, required a lot of hours out and about and so

Unknown Speaker : 5:37

yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 5:38

okay. Gosh, I didn't make that connection. But yeah, that's it. Man. That's been a while.

Unknown Speaker : 5:42

So the really fun part about that is, is knowing Ellen petley. Ellen Hart. Yeah. So she was a professor of mine when I was an undergraduate at Texas Tech in 1994. somewhere around there, okay. So yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 5:56

okay. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 5:57

Yes. A doctor perfectly, I think was retiring. Gosh, probably right as I was starting my master's, so we may we cross paths a little bit. Okay. I mean, I know her right. Really, really interesting. very knowledgeable horticulture. Oh, she

Unknown Speaker : 6:10

is she's a blast to talk to you anytime about lots of different things.

Unknown Speaker : 6:14

Dr. Pepper is one of those people that like, one you know where you stand with her? Mm hmm. 100% and I appreciate that. Yes. into, like, you know, and like she was always she's always been very nice to me. But in the back of my head, I'm always like, I don't really want to make her man.

Unknown Speaker : 6:30

No, you know, I knew that. From the first time I entered in her class in that very first class. I remember that day. I remember her introduction. And there's only been a couple of professors that I remember that. Both of them realistically, both of them here. Yeah, one in biology and one and hers for sure. Just because of the presence that they put of it. I'm Yes, this this is me. Yeah. And and it's been great knowing Elon for as long as I have. Yeah. And then the different capacities that I have now for sure,

Unknown Speaker : 7:01

yeah. Okay, so I guess

Unknown Speaker : 7:03

let's let's back up and tell me a little bit about your, you know, we were discussing before we started recording just about all the various and yeah, a wide range of things you've done. So tell me a little bit about like your background. How did you get into studying plants and all of that?

Unknown Speaker : 7:19

So I grew up in a, in a small town in South Texas. My grandpa, I'm generation number two removed from the farm. Okay, so my dad, which meant my grandfather was still farming, excuse me. And so he was a small land holder, and less than 200 acres, rotated cotton, corn and sorghum. And to me, sorghum was the most beautiful crop in the world when it hit that peak about peak color two weeks or so before harvest was just amazing. So up to that point, okay, I want to do this. I don't know what I want to do. I came to Texas Tech. As an undergraduate. I want to be a teacher. Let's do that. I hit my first education, education class. said no way not gonna do

Unknown Speaker : 8:04

about that same time I met the station manager

Unknown Speaker : 8:08

and breeder assistant breeder for Cargill hybrid seeds it had a station in Portland Texas, which is not too far from the house. Okay, so I'm traveling home we're in a College of Ag cultural life sciences t shirt for travel home for Christmas wearing that T shirt and to strike a conversation with them have a summer job that next summer This is the most amazing thing ever. I was a grunt I was a pollinator, that's all I did. And so but it was it was new. It was interesting. I it opened up a window to me and so then I came back for the into the fall semester and said, yeah, this education thing isn't gonna work and change my degree over to agronomy, okay, and ended up being that my my boss, the breeder at the time, his roommate when he was in college was my academic advisor. Okay, so Close the circle again. Yeah, yeah, of how close things are. And so I worked through through college, my time at Texas Tech working for Cargill, up in up in Plainview and ended up working through sorghum and through corn, breeding small, small deployment of corn breeding there. But the cool thing about the seed industry is every eight to 12 years, there's a flip. Yeah. And that flip started in about 2000. And we saw it happening in 99. My wife was working for as grow at the time and in Plainview and and we saw it happening there, too, with the acquisition of another Seed Company and loss of her job, and so we left and we moved down to to brenham. And we're down there and I was looking for a job, she had a job and that's what moved us down there. And so just looking for a job and so it was like, I know, this is greenhouse down there. It's pretty cool. went and said, Hey, I'm looking for a job. I know nothing but how to grow plants in the field, because that's what I've been doing. Yeah. And so they looked at me and said, Oh my gosh, but then I realized about 15 weeks into a 52 week cycle in a greenhouse. All it does is replicate itself every week to two weeks. Yeah. And that replication drove me nuts. And so the really cool thing is we were a wholesale grower for poinsettias. So poinsettias started in April, depending on how you're growing them. Yeah. And we were a cutting and a prefinished grower for the genetics company. So there's two or three genetics companies for poinsettias in the US, okay. And so I'm sitting there looking at all these different things. So when the rose styled racks came out in the early 2000s, I'm looking at that I'm looking at some of the marble things, and I knew I wasn't in the right place when I went. What happens when I cross those two together? What does the f2 population look like then and knowing that couldn't Do it. They didn't know the IP. And so I knew not to even think about doing but my mind went there. And so I ended up at Texas a&m working in the corn breeding and genetics program for almost 10 years. And you know, it was a great time being a red Raider going into Aggie land. Oh my gosh, yeah. That experience. Yeah, I worked with, I worked with some of the most amazing researchers that I've known that have been at a&m for, oh, 35 years at that point, just given me Heck, and I remember just having enough of it one day, I said, I guess it takes a red Raider to replace a lifelong Oh,

Unknown Speaker : 11:42

that's funny.

Unknown Speaker : 11:43

It wasn't and it stopped them saying anything else every now and then I get a little rip chops with it. But But after that, it kind of slowed down, slow down and so I was able to really work into a nice little career their work through most of to graduate degrees Astro If you're ever looking for graduate school, make sure you're looking at research programs. Yeah. research programs have funding for lots of things and make sure you can negotiate in what the funding actually funds. So it's there. Yeah. And you can get through working full time through grad school do I recommend that after doing it? Oh, man, ask your opinion on that cuz you're

Unknown Speaker : 12:26

young. And now you're

Unknown Speaker : 12:28

not so much Yeah, you're that's what that's what my recommendation is to I was told I was advised by a by a breeder by a recruiter within Monsanto when I started my Ph. D. program. Yeah. Quit your job. Quit your job. Go to school full time. Yeah. And get through it.

Unknown Speaker : 12:46

You know, and and that's actually you know, if you if that's if you're out there thinking about grad school, and that's an option for you. If you have a someone that can help support you What else do that yeah cuz I'm you know, All graduated December I'll defend at the end of the summer graduating December, but that'll be like, right at six years. Yep. And which is maybe across the board not uncommon, but that's a long time

Unknown Speaker : 13:11

it is. So 2001 is when I started with Texas AgriLife research 2002 is when I started my Masters, okay. 2006 is when I started my PhD 2011 I'd already moved up here in 2010. So I was into a corporate job trying to finish writing and then make scheduled time to defend. And so fortunately, that company was dead set on you have to finish we're not going to let you not finish that's cool. And so I had that support coming into it. So, um, but would things have been different? Had I just dropped my job gone to school full time? Um, yeah, that would have been a lot different. But at the same time, I wouldn't have the same perspective on things. So

Unknown Speaker : 14:00

that's such a good point. And I think about that a lot. A lot. Yeah. So when I started my PhD I was about a year into a job with extension as a county agent here in Lubbock for years and horticulture agent. And like, it was one of the things I finished my my Master's in 2012. And if you would ask me then, if I was going to go do a PhD, I would have laughed. I did laugh at Apple's faces. I was like, not only No, but Heck, no, you know, like, and then you kind of forget, after a while, and so I was approached by my advisor. Now, we had worked professionally together a little bit, okay, as you know, me as an extension agent, we'd done a field day or something together, right? And he approaches me and says, hey, we've got this this program I'm starting and we think you'd be a good fit for it since you study water and conservation. I was like, I could do a PhD. Oh, man. It's been good. I will be happy to have it.

Unknown Speaker : 14:57

Yes. Is and that's the thing and it becomes a ticket. It opens doors and it gives you a another accomplishment that you have. And it also gives you a different way to think about things because of all the different things you have to think about going into it. Yeah, when you come out and you finish your, to me, it was a really a different way, just looking at life in general, a different set of questions that I asked all the time. And so would I go back and if I had to do it over again, would I not do it? No. Would I do it different? Maybe. But then again, the outcome that I've had is great. Yeah, I mean, I ended up with moving back to Lubbock. So grew up in South Texas came to Lubbock in the mid early, mid 90s for undergraduate, moved down to South Texas or South Central Texas for a few years learned that my wife can't handle the humidity. Oh man, she's, she's a desert girl. Yeah. And we met here and then we moved to South Central Texas and she went what in the world just happened to me and, and then moved back out here. Great people that we've been in To meet everywhere we've been, um, and lifelong friendships everywhere that we venture. And so then on top of that they're moving into the corporate job with the mega company. Right. And so that was a different culture, and then moving into more of a venture capital company, completely different culture, yeah. And then really got to see some things on how not to run a company, and what happens when you run it that way? And not to do and so then whenever we started, when the company started being in trouble, we started seeing signs as Associate Director, my budget reports quick coming in. Oh, yes. And so then this will how much my I don't know how much might we have? We'll go to my boss and say, hey, I want you because I don't know like, well, crap, who knows what, and then just keep going forward. It's like, we can't

Unknown Speaker : 16:49

do that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 16:50

yeah. And so, so yeah. So then the start of the coffee. I mean, I traveled. I've traveled all over the world. had coffee, phenomenal coffee, everyone. Were in what seemed like the worst coffee in the world was it at my home office? Hmm. I mean, just terrible. Coffee, just terrible, terrible, terrible.

Unknown Speaker : 17:09

Well, so that you know what just listening to you talk is interesting. We've had a lot of, I think, similar life experiences. I grew up here in Lubbock. And you know, at 18 I wasn't going to get away for school, you know, whatever. So I went did my undergrad at a&m. Okay. Um, so I've actually a Bachelor of Arts in horticulture. I studied landscape design. Okay, and then moved home did my masters here, you know, and so we've kind of lived in similar places that we have studied and, you know, but like you say, I've just met some of the best people in both places. Yeah, right. And the cultures are very different between a&m and Texas Tech. But I think, like, none of that's bad. Like, I think it's different in in good ways. It

Unknown Speaker : 17:49

is 100%. There are such good people everywhere, but it gives you being able to move around and see everybody in their home and their cultures. And that's what the international travel For me, I met so many amazing people all around the world, whether it's China, India, South Africa, South America, through the Caribbean, Mexico, that everybody has a different culture. Everybody has a different take on things. And you learn to appreciate what you have, then you learn to appreciate what they have. And then you sometimes you go, well, do we really need what we have? Yeah, at some level, because hey, we have they have half that Yeah. Or they use something completely different in a different area. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 18:32

Well, and so so one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on is because I'm a coffee fan, fanatic, whatever, whatever you want to call it. I drink a lot of coffee. In the recent years, I've gotten away from the I'm just gonna stick it in the drip coffeemaker though right you know and and drink whatever comes out of it to, you know, grinding my own. I bought a burger grinder recently and I graduations on this stuff. Alright,

Unknown Speaker : 18:55

best thing I've ever done. That's okay, that's maybe a little overstated, but as far as coffee He goes, the burger grinders The best thing I've ever heard. Yes, yeah. And you know, now I drink mostly French press or like chemex pora or whatever. I want to put a pin in the coffee stuff and come back to that in a minute because I actually want to talk a little bit about plant breeding first perfect. And your experience in that so you said you weren't corn, sorghum, you know, corn, soy, corn and sorghum through my career, whether it was corporate or the academic side. So academic side my focus was all on corn with an occasional since one of my co chairs was a sorghum breeder and occasional stint in there. And we had one project is a really cool project looking at aflatoxin accumulations in corn and sorghum. Okay. And that that was led by me That was really good the first year, completely disastrous a second year. And then the third year, we didn't have enough space or funding for it. So we got a emitted and then I get an email last year that says, hey, yeah, we've analyzed this data because we did a third year 10 years apart from the first and second year and I'm like, oh, Goodness gracious. Wow. And so thinking of the statistics. I mean, I was reading that going, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Oh, hey, yeah, how do I write this review? And then luckily one of who was one of my, one of my committee members wrote in and said, finally lip read his response. It was like, bingo. Yeah. Ditto. So, it was fascinating. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 20:25

So there's, you know, what's what's really interesting to me about Plant Breeding, and I am not a plant breeder. I've taken some courses. I've studied it a little. Okay. Um, I don't know if you know, Dr. Xu here at Texas Tech. I took his plant breeding class. And

Unknown Speaker : 20:38

so I met Dr. Xu and he was a postdoc for Henry when Oh, wow. In 1998 or so. Yeah. And so yeah, so depending on when you took his class, outside of the last two years, there's a possibility that I was actually there for one of them.

Unknown Speaker : 20:56

Okay. That was it would have been Gosh 2010 2011

Unknown Speaker : 21:02

sometime. Okay, so i think i think i started coming in and helping him with one of the industry perspective classes in 12. Okay, is when I started coming in and it was one day, one day, a semester would come in and talk about my breeding program and what I was actually doing. That's interesting. We just missed missed each other. I think I took it. You know, it's been a minute, but I think I took it like, Fall of 2011. Okay. Um, but there's,

Unknown Speaker : 21:28

there's so much. I don't know that I want to say okay, I will say misinformation out there about what breeding is. Yes. And you people hear

Unknown Speaker : 21:39

plant breeding and they automatically think gene insertions transgenics, GMOs correct. When the vast majority of plant breeding throughout human history has completely not been that correct, and you set it right there through human history. Each of us are a project progeny of a breeding experiment. Right, every single one of us is just that. And so through experiments through experimentation through documentation, thank you, Gregor Mendel for for his observations in what we were able to go through and move forward. But yeah, they think breeding is a bad thing a lot of people really do. And it's hard to express that over compared to gene insertion. Yeah. Which has its place and is very useful in some aspects. Could it be misused? Absolutely. Just like any other technology out there, right? Yeah, we can use it for what it's for the positive intended purpose. Or we can turn around and use it for a negative purpose, accidentally or purposefully. Yeah. And so sometimes we don't understand the consequences of what we do immediately when we do them. So

Unknown Speaker : 22:52

well, and that's, you know, it's interesting to think about, because if you look at the the scope of so Every other I would say is that people think science happens fast because in movies, okay, here's a great example. This with all this Coronavirus stuff, the movie Panda, not pandemic contagion. Yep, where it's like, in the course of an hour and a half movie, you know, she finds a gene and a monkey and like, makes a makes a vaccine and injects herself and all this stuff. When when the pace of science is not that, right. And so when we talk about, you know, the 3040 years we have experience with with our genetically modified organisms when they're transgenics and Gene insertions. That's not

Unknown Speaker : 23:39

that long. No, it's not when you consider that when we think back to when we with Watson and Crick and, and identifying the double helix, yeah. And then you move forward to, hey, we're able to identify down to the nucleotide, then you move forward to this. We're looking at a very short time period, but it's taken a long time to understand exactly what's happening in we still don't know everything of why everything happens the way it does what? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 24:06

Which is why we keep doing the science. Yes. Right. So you know, and I, you know, and it's it's an interesting spot for me because I in general, and pretty pro ag tech, right. I'm pro GMO in general, right. But then when people ask like, Can you say for certain that it's 100% safe? No,

Unknown Speaker : 24:26

I don't know. data has shown that it's fairly safe. But I don't know because we don't have the the scope of data yet. We don't. And there's a lot of things out there that we don't know what happens when. So my breeding career at Texas a&m was all working in pre harvest aflatoxin accumulation. So trying to limit how much aflatoxins the fungus Aspergillus flavus produces, right? So there's a there is a an interaction between genotype of corn and genotype of Aspergillus flavus on how much actually gets produced? Interesting. All right, so you end up with some type of gbv. there when you when you take out the environment, you just look at corn and, and flavus. Yeah. And so you said I can go crap. Well, what happens when this gets into the into the food chain? Well, it causes liver cancer, right? It's bad. Yeah, we know that. But when does it enter in what can be a trigger for it? There's always a level of risk that we have to have at something with everything. But what does that level of risk? And then do we err on the side of not being able to potentially produce enough food for the people out there?

Unknown Speaker : 25:42

It's interesting. It is that it's an interesting both science question and philosophical question.

Unknown Speaker : 25:47

It is. Yeah. And so the other side of it is that we've, we've in the US used it mainly in large scale economic crops to ease production, right? A lot of different reasons for that one. There's lack of help on the farm side, ease of producing a crop across the board. But what we don't think about are some of the quality products that GMOs have come into. So eggplant is one so brinjal and in India, right, there's a virus that affects it. Well, they created a GMO that was resistant to the virus. Well, they started having the arguments of what is it completely safe? Well, it was either is it completely safe, and we eat is it not completely safe and we don't eat or what and so once the genetics got out, I mean, like theft? Yeah, it was rampant. Yeah. The The, the people revolted and planted at the farmers planet because it was either we have the genetics and we planted we have a crop, or we don't have that genetics. And we don't plant it. We don't have a crop. Yeah. So So that was it was a really interesting back to the full philosophy of what happens with this. And in where do we draw a line? Where we as we as food secure country? Yes. Where do we draw the line and say you can't have this right for a place that has a lot less security when it comes to food? Yeah. And so you can apply the same philosophy into the golden rice principle. Yeah. Right. in Southeast Asia.

Unknown Speaker : 27:30

Yeah. You know, where vitamin A deficiency is a real thing. Yes. And, and it's, and you bring up a really interesting point. And, you know, we probably won't dwell on this too much. I think that we should spend a lot of time talking about this. And maybe we will some time actually. But you bring up a good point that it's easy for us, I think, as like you say, food, food secure, developed country, to say, I choose not to eat this right. I choose not to use it I for whatever reason. But if your options are use it, or starve or use it or you don't make any money, right, which is kind of a big deal. Yes, it is, you know that your your choice matrix there kind of gets pretty simplified in a lot of cases. So, you know, that's that's an interesting thing to think about and and you know that that's going to continue, I'm sure to be a debate for

Unknown Speaker : 28:24

forever Forever, because everybody has their, their panacea of what foods should be. Yeah. And there's a lot of overlap between them, but everybody has their own little niche of it. And so it's a it's a very, very interesting thing.

Unknown Speaker : 28:39

Well, and somewhat someone who is kind of a hero of mine that in my mind shouldn't be a polarizing figure, but in some cases is is a Norman Borlaug. Dr. Dr. Borlaug, right, he if you haven't, I'm sure you've read it. But if you're out there listening there's a really great book called The man who fed the world. Yep, about Norman Bohr. Like fascinating about his life and he through conventional breeding practices bred

Unknown Speaker : 29:06

I guess he did rice and wheat I believe started out

Unknown Speaker : 29:08

rice and then went into wheat and ended up at summit bringing wheat and he was one and introduced the, the dwarfing genes. Yeah. Right. So traditional wheat is six foot tall Yeah. And traditionally would fall down so he's able to shorten the plant through your through identification of dwarfing genes, increase the yield and thus be able to feed a lot more people so I believe he was credited with saving a billion lives like that and before that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Yeah, so yeah, and

Unknown Speaker : 29:36

you know, his his research institutes at Texas a&m now close to you. But But you know, in for me and ag agriculture, I'm like, this guy is clear for me clearly here. But then you start to talk to some people and they're like, well, Pete brought about this whole like, breeding revolution that has led us to where we are now. So it's just, it's an interesting just, I don't know moral in

Unknown Speaker : 29:58

discussion. It is it really is. And so we think about what are we going to do? And how are we going to do it? But at the same time, we were talking about a completely different subject with another person one time. And their response was, you always default towards life. Yeah. And that one, just that one has just stung me in is like, wow, okay, so if we can do something that's going to help somebody live in it, and hopefully live better, yeah, I'm gonna do what I can to help that person live and live better. If I believe something different, but I know that this technology is going to do it. I'm going to do that. Yeah. Because that's what that person needs. And so

Unknown Speaker : 30:39

that's really profound.

Unknown Speaker : 30:40

Yeah, it is in in today's climate, that's very good. It is in in No, this was it was like I said, it was a completely different subject matter that I don't even want to try to get into. Now, um, and it was default towards life. But then I started realizing, when you apply that statement to everything that's out there. How Is your view change on things? Yeah, a lot, a lot. A lot.

Unknown Speaker : 31:04

That's gonna keep me up. But that hasn't been in a good way. That's Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 31:07

it's really interesting. Okay, so we'll, we'll switch gears a little bit, um, that that was a really fascinating conversation. But I do want to talk about coffee. And maybe we'll bring a little bit of that in here. So how did you get in to the coffee industry? Oh, so coffee, coffee from breeding from breeding corn and sorghum, and then later sorghum for, for energy, and for stylage. She was into my breeding career to coffee. We had a coffee service at the office and the company is working for and it was terrible. It was a hideous coffee. And we couldn't do anything to make it good. may have been the brewer is I think it was all the coffee because I made it several different ways. Yeah. And my travels throughout the world had phenomenal coffee to come back and just drink beer. Right. And so I was traveling through and I'd had Local coffees through couple of Coffee Roasters here in but I was traveling down through Central Texas and I spent the night at Temple and said okay got up in the morning coffee shop closest local non medical what I call it green mermaid i like that i love them I love what they've done for the industry there's things I don't like about him but what they done what Howard Schultz vision was yeah 35 years ago yeah is amazing for the industry and what doors they've opened up it's just phenomenal. I'd still rather not drink it I agree with I agree with you. A good point but but I was looking for something local and so from where I was at the closest one was I had to drive down to Belton Okay, and so I walked in there and for some I'd really seen a wall of coffees in I was like, Okay, what do you guys have on trip they said well, this is Ethiopian your arms. Okay, let me try is like my gosh, this is amazing. So I bought a bag of it and I drank through it through chemex at that point, yeah. And still my go to drink in the morning. Yeah, and And so then I thought well you know what? I bet I can do this so I started researching coffee roasting a little bit in bought a hot top home coffee roaster Okay, and did my first one outside I've read some more people did inside wives got mad at them have said, smokes like crazy. And I did my first one outside and I said oh yeah, this would not end well if I did them this inside. And so it just started off every now that I love Facebook at times and one of them is that it reminds you of things you posted several years ago. Yeah. And so a couple months ago, it was my very first roast. I took a picture of it and posted it and looked at it and went Wow, that looks like it could be in a grinder at some major chain coffee shop. Yeah, ultra dark roast. I didn't even try it. It was so bad. By the end of it, it smelled terrible. And so I just turned into another science project for me. Sure. And then I started handing some out to friends and family and after I start getting some that are really good and Then it started being more than that hot top had a grand grand grand capacity of like 220 grams wow yeah so that that was 220 grams going in so you average 12 to 15% moisture yeah so yeah about what you're gonna have coming out here 180 grams or so coffee on the back end of it. So yeah so you know you you just kind of go hey I've got a good job and I can afford another car payment and so let's go buy a small commercial one. Okay and so because I was to the point where as roasting for me and my friends and sending something to family when I started roasting it might be three hours a night on that thing about 30 minutes 27 minutes a roast yeah for the time thought work shorter short of taking off the safety mechanisms of it and and modifying it knows we

Unknown Speaker : 34:50

all think about those things

Unknown Speaker : 34:52

we do but then then when we see the commercials about she sheds being Bernie and so forth. You gotta know I don't like my like, my little man. Back here yeah

Unknown Speaker : 35:00

you don't wanna burn out

Unknown Speaker : 35:04

and and and so we bought a small commercial roaster and it just started snowballing and we said hey, let's try to sell some we found a market that wasn't full yet and ended up out the wolf for farmers market cool. I think at that time we were vendor number seven out there and tents and wow, yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 35:22

I think I just saw a post saying the off like 90 vendors or something

Unknown Speaker : 35:25

total including all the ones inside last week, I think there was 63 that were there in person. Wow. Yeah. So 63 vendors in person then the market also has an indoor market where if you can't be there, you have a product that that is usable there. So one of my friends he has sources, macadamia nuts, okay. And so he has them sitting in there for sale. And so they'll say sell them for them. They take a percentage and they go around. Yeah. So and but yeah, we're we've gotten so big out there in the last two And really this last year, yeah, the last six months, we've really grown a lot. And so able to get out there and put some coffee out there and doing everything at the house at that point. So operating, we decided that it was best operate under cottage laws labeled everything such. And after everything started selling as I went live, well, this is going a lot. And so I called my Rosie manufacturer and said, Hey, can you What's the next step? What's the next logical and they said suggested a roaster. So we got it on order and took while we said, Hey, next logical step is to we go can really go commercial. And so then we say, Sure. So we had I had my side gig that was going long, while I was still my corporate job now working in a company, so it was back to working full time, and essentially working back on my dissertation again. So having two science projects going on at the same time was in it was a lot of fun. It was interesting. Yeah. But so it's just It really snowballed in that regard. And then being in the right place at the right time and getting to see people and be in front of people. That was the hardest thing at the beginning of it for me was, how do I get in front of people? Yeah. How do I go meet business owners? How do I find the general managers? How do I find these people? Sure in so I was able to be at the right place at the right time meet critical people that are still in my lives that that just are there. Whenever I say, Hey, I know I've got this problem and bounce something off of them. And they go, Oh, yeah, well, if you thought about this way, so ah, yeah. So I get a lot of aha moments from people and whether or not I should do something or not and how to go about doing and how the different ways to look at it. That's awesome.

Unknown Speaker : 37:42

Well, and that's, you know, very much the life of a small business owner. I've owned various small businesses over the years. I do some woodworking now. Yeah, my family is a peach orchard, which is, I think at the time this comes out, we'll have been selling for a little bit already. Okay, good. Hopefully, you know, the arms crossed every you know, We're so, so much a so much dependent on the weather that Goodyear can turn bad real quick when the hail storms bite can but so far everything looks really good. Um, but yeah, that's kind of a life of a small business owner, especially in this like local food industry, food and drink industry, where it's like, you've got to make friends. And you've got to roll up, be able to rely on your friends you do. And you have to have a very strong network that you're able to access. In doing so I've been able to generate a network now that's almost nationwide. That's cool.

Unknown Speaker : 38:34

Yeah. And so it's really cool. That's and

Unknown Speaker : 38:36

that's that's such an interesting story just as a way to get into it. And that's so funny that so many great businesses, I think, start off with like, drinking a cup of coffee or doing something and be like, I could do this better. Yeah. That's kind of how I got into woodworking Actually, I did in high school. Okay. A few years ago, when I was with extension. I was going to speak at a conference or something like that. And I was you know, it'd be cool. I'm a plant guy. I really want like a wooden tie clip. I'd seen one on Facebook or something. Sorry, I did some on on you Seattle based large online shopping chain. And they came in and I was like, I paid 30 bucks for this. Are you kidding me? I can do this better. I have some. So I played around and I made a couple of Thai bars and then it's like, you know, you get your first taste and it's like, oh, but I could do this too. And then my, my parents bought me a lathe and I believe made some cutting boards and I was like, and then it's just you know, off to the races from there I and it's it's fine, right? You get into that kind of stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 39:43

Yeah. And it is it's a lot of fun whenever you start doing it and then you get down to going Oh, man, what am I gonna call this thing? Oh, yeah. And and so we ended up with a name and he had a Spanish roasters and we went through several different iterations and some people asked how did we end up with tiata plus Lunch roasters and I said, you know, we wanted to tie it back to where we're at. Yeah. I didn't want to say hey, we're the same name but Coffee Roasters as a adult beverage company down the road. Yeah, sure. Okay. I want to call it that. My wife nixed Absolutely. Next immediately when I said hey, let's call it the cotton country Coffee Roasters. She didn't like that. I was like, man, we could be we could be the the cotton country coffee roaster so it'd be on the CQ bar. She was like, No, absolutely not. And so we started thinking we went okay, what are we where are we are in the flatlands. Okay, flatlands. flatlands, open up Yellow Pages and how many flatlanders install there's a bunch and so he said, All right. So we leaned on some of our network and said, Hey, help us translate this. And they came back with several and we went around around on a few of them and we had another friend ask us he said Are you sure you want to do this carry? So why is that is a very ethnic name, huh? I said, Okay, bad. It goes, Well, it could be. And I said, but he goes, it works. Yeah, that's it. Okay. And so in two and a half years, I've had two people comment on it. I've had a lot of people ask about it. Yeah. Um, and and knowing that and looking at going to Spanish roasters, and thought about goes, Okay, where does the coffee come from? Coffee comes from high lands. Okay. A little bit higher than what we are here. 1000 thousand meters? I mean, grow quality coffee here. We're in the tropics. Yeah. But, but then I thought about the tagline where's it come from? Well, it comes from even higher. So it's coming from the highlands to the flatlands that we put the translation right in there for everybody. I like it. And and so a lot of people looking at what does that mean? It's like, well, it's flatland. So like, and then they read the tagline about the about that time, like and so that's really cool. Yeah, so so it was really fun playing with that. And then we've been through a different iteration of the logo. The first one was really, really Short, but very long is really cool as mountains that mountains that trailed into a flatland and had our name across it and incorporated some of the effects of it. But the problem was to make it really readable. We had to make it two backs worth of me wide. Sure. So we accessed one of the marketing groups here find out new marketing said hey, we need some help. And they they talked with us for a while. And Amy Woods she's just amazing person she talked with us for a while we got on was a project manager and they talked with us for a while and they came back with about three or four different iterations. It was a nickel, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Now Now we have another couple of different ones that we're using and we're getting ready to to use that this one on the bags for more of a corporate logo and then we'll coffee is going to be have a little bit different logo so as as it's going and as our wholesale business is expanding. We're offering a few different products trying to be more rounded for for our customers. We can offer different teas, different objects. And so yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker : 43:03

really cool. And I like I'm looking at the this bag and I just like very much that just says ingredients coffee. That's right, that makes me happy. So the fun. The

Unknown Speaker : 43:11

fun thing is, is I have to have an ingredient statement on it. Yeah. And so so you know, what's in there, like coffee, there's coffee in it. That's all their coffee. It's all there is. And so yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 43:23

yeah, that's, that's really interesting. So, I want to we get, you know, again, it doesn't really matter how long we go, I don't care. What I found is that our listeners will keep listening. Yeah, so it's good. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about the future of the coffee industry,

Unknown Speaker : 43:39

okay. Because,

Unknown Speaker : 43:40

you know, if you spend any time on social media, you have probably seen an article pop up that says, coffee industry has x number of years left because the and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that as a scientist as someone who is dealt with the genetics of plants, what's the future of this industry with climate change? Everything else coming in.

Unknown Speaker : 44:01

So without a lot of change without a lot of change on on the one the consumer end on the producer end. Um, climate change is happening. Yeah, we can mitigate it as much as we can. But we're not going to go back to what we were right. All right, we're stuck. Even if we stopped change from happening right now, we're stuck. We're read in. So again, back to my wife when she moved down to College Station. She didn't perform well down there. I mean, her body in that humid environment did not like it, right, we see the same thing with corn and sorghum. Some general genotypes perform really well in humid environments. Some perform really well in more arid environments. And so then the same thing is going to have happens with coffee. You take a genetic base from, say, from Ethiopia or from Kenya. So sl 28. And you take it from there and you put it in to Colombia or to Costa Rica, you're going to have a product that may or may not perform well and definitely doesn't taste great. Just the same flavor of coffee is what it had in different places. Right. And so one of the biggest things that's happened with coffee through with climate change is rust. Okay, interesting. Okay. And so there's places that have rust now that have never had rust in those places don't have the genetics in place. So again, back to the genotype by environmental interaction. We can take coffees from places that have rust and have genetic resistance, but you may not have a very flavorful cup. So that's where the center came in and said for coffee, excellent improvement. Yeah, human and they started breeding coffee. And they started their first trials this year of coffee they did and these are huge trials. Yeah, that they have in different countries and multiple different locations in countries. And so the fun thing with a crop like coffee is you have two things that you have to look at. You have a definite quantitative response right yield Yeah, how many pounds of beans who get the plant? But then we have an enormous qualitative response that we have to look at. And that's what is it? Like, what is the presence in the cup? Yeah. And so these are all efforts that have come about through breeding efforts that have happened in the past 10 years or so. It takes a while. Yeah. As we were talking earlier, it takes a while for science to happen. We can we can start a generation and Norman Borlaug did it and started the, what he called the shuttle breeding back and forth to two to three generations in a year. Yeah, the most we were able to crank out was four. Yeah, and that was using greenhouse early harvest. Really fast movement back to a tropical environment. Then really fast movement back to Lubbock. So it was basically plant in Lubbock. And then harvest early plant in the greenhouse, harvest early plant in the greenhouse, send to tropical environment, get back and hopefully plant by mid June. Wow. Yeah, that's intense. Is it cranking out cranking out some generation Yeah, and there are different different groups that figured out different ways to do it and even crank out faster by light manipulations short, so 90 days, or less than 90 day cycles complete. Total. That's pretty amazing in the greenhouse, right? Yeah. It is massive intensive management, though. And so that the use of back to coffee, the usage of science to improve coffee for those coffee farmers Well, what's happening is the rust is hitting in areas that it hadn't been killing the plants. Coffee, farmers are taking that out and saying, Hey, we're gonna plant something different, because there's nothing for us right now. And so that's where the senator came in, and is trying to improve coffee back across the world. One yield to improving the quality. Yeah, and so then, then once we're improving the quality to a certain level, then it works on the smaller level. Back to the importers, the overall coffee industry demanding Hey, let's take it up a step. Let's improve your fertility. That's improved irrigation shirt. Let's improve Overall and raise the bar even higher. And so will there be an eventual drop in coffee production? Possibly. Yeah. Over time. Will it completely go away? Now? Not at all?

Unknown Speaker : 48:11

Yeah, not at all. Yeah, I guess a lot. It ultimately comes down to that, then you get into the economics of it, the pricing Anything else? Yeah, that's, you know, a whole other conversation. But no, that's really interesting. And, you know, as a coffee drinker, that's encouraging to me in a couple of ways. And as a human on the planet. It's also encouraging to me because I think sometimes we fall into this. So especially talking about climate change, and all the garbage that's going on right now, we fall into the super negative cycle of everything's terrible. The world's gonna end tomorrow. But the fact of the matter is, there's people in all of these industries on the frontlines working towards a better world. That's right.

Unknown Speaker : 48:51

And that's right, and then we'll go back to GMOs on this. So everybody, I get a lot of questions, whether it's GMO free There are, as far as I know, there are not any GMOs out there coffee right at all. There have all been there's breeding efforts. But it's all been done in genetics and non insertion. But I think about it and go a second, if we knew the gene that causes the that ensues, resistance to the rust, would it be worth to insert that in? Yeah. And there's different technologies out there for gene insertion that are very, very accurate. Yeah. And in So would it be worth it? Would could that make a faster turnaround for that to improve for the farmers back to what you suggested? We're working to improve something for somebody?

Unknown Speaker : 49:33

Yeah. And and like you said earlier, and I think that's just a great takeaway from this whole discussion. The whole maybe, maybe the I think every scientist should have a T shirt that says default towards life. Yeah, you know, every person I think so

Unknown Speaker : 49:46

that would it would be an interesting thing of hashtag default words like

Unknown Speaker : 49:50

I like that also. Because Because again, that is our that is our goal, right? We as as scientists, we're supposed to be building a better tomorrow, right? That's right. And

Unknown Speaker : 50:01

if if

Unknown Speaker : 50:03

not just human life, the life in general, in and of itself for its intrinsic value, not because of its utility, right is our goal we How much could we do? Right? You know, and and of course it's it's more complicated than that, but maybe it shouldn't be.

Unknown Speaker : 50:16

Yeah. And I think that's what we do is a times we overcomplicate it and say, well, that works here, but not here, or that works there. But not over here. Yeah, in But what happens if we do just apply it across the board carp launch, just do it and see what happens.

Unknown Speaker : 50:32

Well, so as we wrap up, I asked this question, and maybe maybe we've just kind of answered it. But I always asked my guests just for a piece of advice. Right. And that can be in picking a good cup of coffee. It's really whatever you want. Could it could be picking a good cup of coffee or just following your passions in life. Well, what would your piece of advice for our listeners be?

Unknown Speaker : 50:54

Oh, shoot, I got asked this a long time ago. When I got it was interviewed at Ellison's greenhouses in brenham Is what would you tell? Basically, same thing? What would you tell a graduating senior? And that was at that point it was, Hey, don't let life pass you by because you can't catch up. And really you can't. And technology was changing at that point. So 2000 issue you think about y2k, you think about how fast computer technology changes. At that point. We're still changing, different coding languages are coming out, and so forth. And so it's really hard to catch up.

Unknown Speaker : 51:25

Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 51:26

But even if you let something pass you by, you may not need to catch up. I mean, it's amazing what 2420 some odd years difference changes my opinion on that, but you may not do need to catch up but embrace what you have. Yeah. Is embrace what you have. change what you can and enjoy the rest. I love it. I mean, it really is because you may miss something. And thinking back to 20 years ago may thinking that in suggesting that you've got to catch up to everybody, but that may not be where you need to be Yeah, but embrace what you have and enjoy it.

Unknown Speaker : 52:04

Yeah, I love that. I love that a lot. Um, so where can we find you plug plug yourself Alright, so

Unknown Speaker : 52:09

whatever Yeah, so to Spanish roasters, ti e, rr s plns roasters.com or on Facebook to Spanish roasters, Instagram tips posh roasters Don't laugh at Twitter because it has bad it not bad but it has a an effect now especially from the last three months but I just put it in and didn't think about it. But it's TP roasters. Okay, there Yeah. So it dawned on me I did something mid March I looked into it. Oh no. So but then to make it easy knowing that our name is long to Spanish roasters. The easiest way to find us on online is TPR coffee calm you can get pick up a cup at or baggage JMB coffee house here in law coke online we ship across the nation haven't tried any world shipments yet waiting for my parents to get back to their house in Ecuador. Okay and want to try a shipment there and just to see what happens or see if it makes it or not. I doubt it does I bet it goes somebody in customs and they get to enjoy a phenomenal cup. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so my guests enjoy. They're gonna embrace what they have. Yeah. So but yeah, those social things. If you're here in Lubbock, come see us out the wolf for farmers market every Saturday from 10 till two we have samples of a couple different coffees. Every week we set up for semi full service coffee shop out there. Okay. Hot and cold drinks. And as you mentioned, it's just a really big market that is just grown over the last two months. It's a really cool atmosphere. It is it is really cool atmosphere, the base of the market. We're all in, in little barns. Yeah. And we operate down to that with tents. The new vendors coming in, all end up intense out there. Just as we did two years ago, yeah. Being at the end of the line and, and you get to see a lot of different people and a lot of different locally produced products, a lot of different produce vendors that are out there. Saw that we're going to have one of the vendors gonna have a bunch of cherries coming in a cool bunch of peaches and something that you're gonna have like nectarines, not nectarines. Yeah, yeah, one of them one of the one of them that I don't like. There's a lot of fruits that I don't like but there's a couple of them. Yeah, figs is one now just candy eggs. Interesting. Um, and but there's a lot of different products out there and a lot of different, a lot of different stories once you get to know the vendors that are out there, why they're they're very good that and that's the cool thing is getting to know the vendors and why they're there. why they're doing what they're doing and what's driving them to do what they're doing.

Unknown Speaker : 54:51

Yeah. And that's, that's great. So definitely, everyone just go support your local businesses, your local producers, your everyone from Coffee Roasters to bread makers and everyone in between I you know, you know if this this whole thing has this whole shut down lockdown thing has taught us anything is that we need to make sure that we're building up our local industries. Yep and regionalizing and localizing as we can

Unknown Speaker : 55:16

that we do and so one of the cool things don't plug the market out there and what the the owner's vision through this through this last two month two and a half months has been is they saw a need. They saw a need for food when store shelves started. started being empty. They saw a need and they saw their ability to buy food through different channels that a regular consumer might not be able to. And so they started having a community table. That was they were sourcing in food in large quantities. 2550 pound bags of flour, rice, what have you Yeah, in large quantities that typical homeowner is not going to get and then they're re bagging it in that way and they they made that available you needed. You needed flour. Here's your flour, baking powder went off the store shelves. Yeah, here's a baking powder. And it was free. There's donation thing there. If you wanted to put money in, if you had product, you're welcome to get with them and add your product to the community label. And they've continued to do this. And it's just gotten bigger and bigger. And it's really cool watching the transactions happen of people coming in. And people taking Yes, it's a given a take. They're providing some some of the community that has had excess of things through that time and realize, Hey, I'm not going to use these 510 pound bags of flour that I bought. Yeah, they're bringing some out there to share with everybody else. That's really cool. Yeah. And so in the first few weeks of that the community table was being vacated within 45 minutes of the market open. Yeah. And and they were limiting on how much so regular powder, you get a little, a little Ziploc pouch of it. Yeah. And so they had 80 of them and they were gone.

Unknown Speaker : 56:49

So that's awesome. Well, that's and that's, you know, just taking care of the community giving back to the community that that supports the market and that's, you know, definitely go visit them and, and all of that well. Make

Unknown Speaker : 57:00

up the I really enjoyed this conversation

Unknown Speaker : 57:01

really enjoyed it felt like we had a couple loose ends there between breeding and coffee. Yeah, but we can we can follow up another time. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 57:08

I think so I think we should, you know, again it's hard to in an hour or less it's so much ground but I you know I you get so much experience that

Unknown Speaker : 57:18

I wanted to try to hit it.

Unknown Speaker : 57:20

You know, we can hit it a little bit and hit a little bit more and hit a little bit more. Yeah, no,

Unknown Speaker : 57:23

no, I agree. I think I'd love to have you back on and maybe deep dive into some of this a little bit more. But that sounds good. Now again, thanks for thanks for being on. And everyone listening. I hope you enjoyed and we will see you next time. Thank you. I'm gonna keep this outro short, and just say in all things you do socially, scientifically, financially, and everything in between default towards life, if you can make someone's life better, and if you can use your skills to save a life or to improve the quality of life for someone, that's the thing you should be doing default towards life. Thanks so much for listening today I hope you enjoyed that episode. thank you as always to the texas tech department of plant and soil science for the support and the freedom to do this. Wish me luck on next Wednesday the 29th with my defense, either I will be back next time on August 5 as a Dr. Vikram Baliga. Or you'll never hear from me again because I failed my defense and move to the mountains to hunt squirrels for their pelts for a living. Y'all are the best. Thanks for listening again. And assuming I am back in two weeks, we'll be back with our very first deep dive episode, where I bring a guest back with my friend Holly Casey from the one to grow on podcast. Take it easy. We'll talk to you soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai