Farming

Successful businesses analyze their successes and shortcomings so they know how to adjust moving forward. If you’re a farmer, you’re in the business of crop production, so what lessons have you learned that you’ll apply to next year? Kelly Garrett shares his 5 lessons from this year and explains how he’ll utilize those lessons for a successful 2022. Lesson #1: Soybean Populations

Planting fewer seeds to achieve more bushels seems counter intuitive. After all, more is more, right? Wrong. When it comes to seeding population in soybeans, “more" might simply mean more expense with less yield to show for it. Matt and Layne Miles of Miles Farms discuss the results of their planting population trials. The Miles' experimented with 140,000 population all the way down to just 60,000 seeds per acre. The results: Yields were almost identical. The Miles' explain opportunities this creates for cost savings and they also describe some of the risks associated with planting less to harvest more.

Kelly combined his soybean population trials of 150K, 120K, 90K, 60K, and 34K. In this member video, Kelly dives into the yields and ROI of the different populations and shares some surprising results that will change the way he plants his soybeans next season.

With bigger corn crops come more stover in the field, which can prevent proper seed-to- soil contact following planting. Biologicals such as ResidueRX eliminate this problem, along with preventing disease, maximizing nutrient utilization, and saving you time and money by allowing you to apply during your pre-emergent spray pass. In this episode we discuss residue management to attain bigger yields — especially while reducing planting population.

Heavy residue in Kelly's no-till environment can lead to Physoderma stalk rot. In this video Kelly talks about the trial he is doing with BASF's Veltyma™ to prevent stalk rot from setting in. He also discusses the soybean population trials he is conducting this year and the foliar application he is delivering using a mix of products from TEVA Corporation, AgXplore and Hefty Naturals.

Most people in Kelly's area are planting a 2.2 to a 2.5 maturity soybean, but Kelly is really pushing it this year with a 1.1 maturity bean from Hefty Seed. He believes that any yield drag that he experiences will be made up through the other opportunities that an early maturing variety offers.

Always looking for the perfect combination, Kelly decided to play with the soybean populations this year, planting a range of populations from 150K all the way down to 34K. If all goes well, Kelly thinks that the yields will be consistent across all populations. Here is what he is seeing so far.

Kelly pays a visit to Bush Bottom, one of his 2021 NCGA contest fields. Planted on May 10th, this field was planted with Integra Seed 6061 at 36K and 38K populations. In this video Kelly talks about the stand and the products he used in-furrow and in the 2x2.