Farming Podcast | Precision Corn Fertility Trials | XtremeAg

00:00:00 How can you grow corn on a fertility budget, still make a lot of yield and make more money? That's what we're covering in this Economic Fertility 00:00:08 Challenge episode of Extreme Ag Cutting the Curve. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights 00:00:16 and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:24 Hey there. Welcome to a special edition of Extre Ice Cutting the Curve. We're doing a whole series of these episodes, short 00:00:29 and sweet, and we're talking to you about the Economic Fertility challenge. Last year we teamed up with our friends at Aggro Liquid, 00:00:35 and we did this at Matt Miles farm on, uh, corn and soybean. It was soybean production, corn production, 00:00:42 and uh, it was very educational. We said, you know, let's expand that. So we're doing corn, soy, and wheat, 00:00:47 and we're doing a number of different, uh, uh, you know, experimentations with this, if you will. 00:00:52 So, Johnny Verell, Kelly Garrett and Matt Miles all are participating in the, uh, corn competition and they're teaming up 00:00:59 with the experts from Agro Liquid. I've got Stephanie Linco and Aaron Stahl from Agro Liquid, and I've got those three extreme ag guys here, 00:01:05 Matt, Kelly, and Johnny. Talk to you about the corn challenge. Kelly, you put this in, 00:01:09 or to be more accurate, your son Verne and your agronomist Mike Evans, put it in, the goal is 300 bushels per acre on a $60 00:01:18 post applied fertility budget. Tell me about the experimentation. Yes, it's something that we do very similar 00:01:25 to our Grower Standard practice here. You know, we will have some base fertility upfront. Uh, we will, uh, you know, 00:01:32 this would be in a higher yielding area so there wouldn't be a lot of nitrogen. Probably about 80 to a hundred pounds 00:01:37 of nitrogen is all that would go up front. And then throughout the season, we will take our SAP test and see what we need to supplement. 00:01:45 Uh, the, the base fertility would've been the plant food, which is the liquid byproduct that I have that you know, 00:01:50 that we spread on many acres. And then we're, like I said, come back with the SAP test. And what we try to do is achieve mineral balance just 00:01:58 like we do on all crops. What do you think we're gonna find out? Usually you 00:02:04 and I have been talking about this in a number of recordings. We find out we overly fertility, we spend too much, 00:02:10 and we don't get the product, we don't get the product into the plant. And these kind of experiments force you 00:02:16 to become more rationing, and then it kind of dawns on you, why the hell weren't we doing this to begin with? 00:02:22 Well, exactly, you know, uh, if you look at the December corn Board right now, what, you know, I haven't looked at it today, 00:02:27 but it, it's approximately four 20. Uh, you take a basis off of that or add to it depending on what part of the country. 00:02:33 And I don't care where you're at, Arkansas, Tennessee, or Iowa, four 20 on the board of trades not great. And to me, that makes the SAP test even more important 00:02:41 because how do you manage what you don't measure? And if you are over applying or wasting anything, uh, we, we just don't have room 00:02:49 to waste with $4 20 cents December corn. And so I very much, um, I very much want the crop to reach potential. 00:02:57 I very much don't wanna waste anything and I wanna be, I wanna be the low cost producer while I'm reaching potential. 00:03:03 And that's the reason that we manage the way We do. All right, so if you're watching this right now, uh, 00:03:08 if you're listening to it, great. If you're watching it because, you know, we release all these on our website, 00:03:12 extreme ag.farm, as well as YouTube. If you're watching it, you're probably saying, of course Matt has to cut back on fertility spend. 00:03:18 He needs money for blinds right now. There's a sun shining through his window and you almost can't see him, uh, 00:03:24 because he's, he moved offices and man needs curtains. I actually, I just, Lori came walking in a little bit, go, do you need anything? 00:03:32 I said, no, but start a GoFundMe account so we can buy some curtains for Matt's office. Anyway, they're 00:03:38 Ordered, they're ordered, they just aren't here yet. That was a, you know, how you pre-plan stuff and make sure everything's perfect when you build something 00:03:45 new that wasn't in. We like that in our planning. Uh, I've got a room going, I stage right here. I'm trying to 00:03:51 stay out of the zone. I got A room edition going on right now. And the more I look at it, the more I think 00:03:55 that nothing was perfectly planned. And that's, uh, the way construction works. Um, what do you, we, we joke about the fact that, uh, 00:04:02 well we didn't joke, but Kelly might've joked and said that the competition last year was held at your farm. 00:04:07 You put in the plots and yet you lost, you did the worst out of all of the competitors in the yield challenge last year, 00:04:14 and it was on your farm. Kelly made that crack. Is Kelly gonna lose on his farm this year to you? Well, I don't know if he cheats. He probably won't. 00:04:24 That tells you right there that I didn't cheat at all when I end up losing, you know, losing the plot. 00:04:29 Now, I did have some, some other things go on in my plot that that didn't quite go on in the others, 00:04:34 but either way, uh, it was an eye-opening experience to me. We were all within a few bushels of each other 00:04:39 and a few dollars of each other. But I definitely come in last. By the way, I think the fun part about this is that yeah, 00:04:46 you can put the ego aside and say, yeah, my plot lost at this, but look at the learning that we did. 00:04:51 And so last year, what'd you learn that you're applying to this year? Yeah, well, if you see the, if you see the picture 00:04:57 that I posted on Facebook the other day of my corns, I've got some of the best corn I've ever had, and that was done with eight tenths of a pound of oxygen. 00:05:04 So, you know, we used to be 1.2 pounds and now we're down to eight tenths, six tenths to eight tenths, just depends. 00:05:10 Uh, so I'm, I'm producing the same or, or better corn with less, with less nitrogen. And, and it goes back to what Kelly says with the, you know, 00:05:18 with the SAP samples or any, any, any, if you're not doing anything, do something because it gives you an idea of what you need 00:05:24 and what you got, you know, through your research on your farm and, and you know what you need and what you don't need. 00:05:30 And, and this year, you know, two or three wrong applications could be the difference of, of being in farming next year or not being in farming Yeah. 00:05:37 In our area for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So by the way, you cut back your ni you're using two thirds as much nitrogen as you used to 00:05:43 and you're making better corn. So there's a great example. Kelly's been making this point 00:05:47 and Johnny's been making this point with their studies and their field days last year, big, huge nitrogen reduction. 00:05:52 So Johnny, let's go to you by the way. He says, okay, do sap sampling and tissue sampling and then you know what you're doing. 00:05:58 The problem is you guys set your prescriptions on these field days that I've got the paperwork here. You set these pro protocols and prescriptions up pre-season. 00:06:08 So whether I pull SAP samples now or not, what difference does it make? You've already set the prescription for what your post, uh, 00:06:13 applied fertility programs gonna look like. Yeah, so like Kelly, he went for all the different micronutrients. 00:06:19 He pretty much every one of 'em you could possibly name off the periodic table he threw in there. 00:06:24 I went for volume, I put out five gallons more of product to the acre over what Kelly did basically. 00:06:29 So I was just going from, you know, volume, quantity over all the different micronutrients thinking I can throw that at it. 00:06:35 So we'll see how it turns out. But at the end of the day, I focus on just a handful of nutrients and just put out more of those. 00:06:42 Well, and Damon to, to what you said, that's where I'm talking about the research and development. So Kelly's been doing site samples 00:06:48 or guys doing tissue samples or whatever for a lot of years. So they know the demand curve. 00:06:53 They know when they're, when those crops need what they need. So you can kind of pre-plan 00:06:57 to a certain extent based on normal weather because the research that's been done with the previous crops with a SAP sample, you know, so, 00:07:06 so you can pre-plan a little bit. Now you're gonna have some anomalies come in there during the season, depending on weather 00:07:11 and temperature, which I guess temperature is weather. But, but if you've done it in the past, you know, we've always said this, you know, 00:07:19 these samples aren't just for the year. You're looking at if you're doing tissues and not sap. Yeah. Then by the, if you see a problem 00:07:25 and you go tissue sampling, you're too late, you know? Yeah. So here's the deal, Stephanie, did you are, are you, are we allowed to make amendments to what our plan is? 00:07:36 If we pull SAP samples on June 10th and they tell us something, can I amend my plan for my plot? Or do we just, are we stuck with 00:07:45 what we said pre-season we were going to do For this child? We were stuck with it because everything went out, you know, 00:07:51 at the start of the season. Um, so we were kind of committed to what we Now is that because the fertility company's difficult 00:07:56 to work with and they wanted to ship all the stuff back in March and make it easy on them? 00:08:00 Absolutely not. It's because it was planter applied, so you know, the crops planted and so you can't cha change and take nutrients out of the soil. 00:08:07 And so, um, but when we're dealing with foliar applications, um, like Matt's we're doing cotton foliar. 00:08:13 Yeah. If we were doing sapor tissue tests, we could have made adjustments along with that. Yeah. Aaron, what do you think about all this? 00:08:22 This is your first year doing this, isn't it? Yeah. And this is the first time, I've never put a phosphorus up front, but talking to Kelly 00:08:30 and Mike, it was like, we've got a lot of phosphorus out there. Let's go after stuff 00:08:34 that has been short on SAP samples and things like that. So this is a different one for me. 00:08:39 I'm curious to see how it plays out. What about the pressure? I mean, uh, let's just pretend it's just you and me 00:08:44 and we're just kind of like sitting down and we're kind of having a moment. Is the pressure too great for you, Aaron? 00:08:50 I mean, is it like, is it keeping you up at night? Not yet. We'll see how this year goes. Like what Kelly said with the price of corn. 00:08:57 I think this next year is gonna be a challenge. What About the taunting? Are you used to this kind of taunting, 00:09:02 these extreme ag guys get a little taunting? Oh, it's all right. They're farmers. I get it. Deal with it all every day. 00:09:10 All right. On the $60 spend, tell me, uh, roughly where you put it. Johnny Verell, where'd you put it? 00:09:17 Do you know what you, what you, where you put your money? You said five big things. What? 00:09:20 Yeah, I know I put out sulfur and phosphorus and some calcium also are my biggest players. They used about two thirds 00:09:26 of my budget. Those three products. How different, Stephanie, how different are the, the three things you get to see 'em, right? 00:09:32 I do. So it is funny 'cause we have Johnny on that simpler side looking at basically NPK, those cheaper nutrients. 00:09:39 Um, so he did get to put a higher volume out. Then you have Kelly on the opposite end that had everything out there in small 00:09:46 quantities, all those micros. Um, and then Matt sat kind of halfway in between, you know, he did do some of those primary nutrients 00:09:52 and he did do, um, some of those micros. So kind of a, a good balance halfway in between the other two guys. 00:09:57 So it is interesting, everyone had the same $60 spend, but you know, a whole range of where they put those dollars. Are we, are we putting out fertility at time and planting 00:10:05 and then two times during the, during the season Just at planting? All Of it was done at all. It 00:10:10 was done at time of planting? Yeah. Two by two by two or in forrow? Two by two. Got it. Two by. Okay. 00:10:17 So this, this budget doesn't involve something that might get put on right now we're recording this July 23rd, something could be put on right now 00:10:23 and it's not part of this $60 budget. Correct. Okay, got it. Uh, where do you think Matt Miles, 00:10:30 you had a big learning curve last year on your thing and you were willing to admit that, uh, you know, there was the, the overspend 00:10:37 or the lack of budget yield, whatever. Where do think, where do you think most people are overspending and not getting anything from 00:10:43 it when it comes to corn? Like in my area? Yep. I would say nitrogen would be the first one. Yeah. I mean, well that's 00:10:50 Probably, everybody's in everybody's area, right? Yeah. Well and see old school, it, it didn't matter if it was cotton or rice or, 00:10:56 or uh, or corn. If something didn't look right, throw more nitrogen on, you know, that was the, the old mentality 00:11:02 is it really didn't matter. Just throw the nitrogen out there. And what we've seen, and Kelly's taught us a lot about that 00:11:07 and his team is, you know, a balance of a balance. So you can throw the nitrogen out there and if you don't have the microbes 00:11:13 to support it, what do you call it, Kelly? Un assimilated, Un assimilated. Do you wanna 00:11:18 assimilate the nitrogen So you're not, it, it don't matter how you, I can throw 500 pounds. 00:11:23 I did that one time. So I ran, I had a soy high yield soybean plot. I put 500 pounds ammonia sulfate on it in 00:11:29 five different applications. You know, that cost me a lot of money. It was a small plot, but the field next door 00:11:34 to it cut two bush or less. And ROI wasn't even close to being the same. Yeah. So I think that, uh, most people 00:11:41 and I most all part of the country would probably be guilty of overplaying nitrogen if you're talking about 00:11:46 that. So what's the advice you could give? I think we're over, I think we're over applying nitrogen. I think we're under applying microbes. 00:11:51 Kelly, you've said that now for a year and a half. Oh really? Yeah, I didn't mean mistake. No, no, I'm saying 'cause he started, he did that 00:11:59 with his low nitrogen trials last year, his field day and then so did Johnny. So what, what, so you've been saying 00:12:04 that where'd you put your money in your mouth is in this particular study, what's your pounds 00:12:08 of nitrogen 0.6 or something? Right. Our, my pounds in nitrogen will be about, well it depends on the yield to, to come to that answer, 00:12:15 but yes, it'll be approximately 0.6. No actually, um, you know, like it could be less than 0.5. 00:12:23 I mean, I would hope with the, what the year that we've had this year, uh, that it would be, uh, much less than that. 00:12:30 You know, we, because in a high yield area we're down to 80 pounds of nitrogen, 240 bushel corns 0.33. Yeah. But see he is got a lot of nitrogen in his, 00:12:39 so if I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, Kelly, where we have basically none, you know, we're looking at six inch top soil wheel says I got 00:12:46 so on top, I don't even have top soil, you know, and, and Kelly's got, I don't know how deep and Johnny's in the middle. 00:12:52 So you've gotta kind of look at your region and where you're at. I have to apply nitrogen. 00:12:56 I can't go as low as Kelly can probably on any of the, of the nutrients. But I have seen where we've got a lot 00:13:02 of waste, you know what we're doing. 1.2, think about it, 1.2 pounds of nitrogen per bushel. Yep. And, and Kelly's doing it with half or less. Yep. 00:13:11 I should be able to do it with two thirds or or less. Well You are biggest mistake you see Aaron, when you go 00:13:16 and look at this and that you think that you'll be able to take the information from this fertility challenge that we're doing and then go out and tell your customers. 00:13:23 'cause you want them to be prosperous, you want them to be solvent, you want them to have money. What are you gonna take from this fertility challenge you're 00:13:30 doing with extreme ag and share with your customer base? Well, it's fine tuning the micros. 00:13:35 You know, there's some things Kelly's put in there. The fulvic, I haven't dealt, excuse me with our fulvic as much. 00:13:39 It's just been a focus on the general NPK and you know, zinc and things like that. So with this Molly that he's added the fulvic more copper, 00:13:48 um, I've always spiked boron, but these other ones, it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, am I, am I, have I been cutting myself a little 00:13:54 short on things, you know, not focusing on fine tuning these micros like he has. So there's gonna be some, it's a learning curve. 00:14:02 Stephanie, you farm yourself, you and your husband in uh, central Michigan. You do a challenge like this 00:14:08 and do you then go say, Hey honey, you know what? I think we spent a hundred grand too much last year on fertility. 00:14:12 We really gotta dial that back. Do you actually, do you put, do you actually, do you actually practice then what you preach? 00:14:19 Absolutely. You know, that's the only way we're gonna get better as farmers is to look at what other people are doing 00:14:24 and you know, you don't have to do exactly what they're doing. 'cause every operation is different. 00:14:28 Every growing condition is different. But you can learn off of some of these things and then correlate those back to what you're doing. 00:14:35 Um, and that's how you're gonna get better on your own operation. Johnny, who's gonna win this corn 00:14:39 economic fertility challenge? Uh, my bet. It's on Kelly. He knows what his crop needs. Yeah, I thought that last year too. 00:14:48 And that didn't work out for me. Yeah. Do you have a chance, Mr. Rell? You're a sharp guy, you know what you're doing? 00:14:54 I don't know. I put all my eggs like in four products, so we'll see. I looked at some, Kelly was putting out like four ounces. 00:15:00 I was putting out two gallons. So, you know. Well, and that's kind like our Ratios are gonna be off probably. 00:15:05 That's kinda like our, our challenge spot on the cotton ears. That's really cool because a couple 00:15:10 of guys did two applications and Kelly and I did four. You know, I'm, I'm a big proponent of spoon feeding, you know, the cotton plant as it gets older. 00:15:18 And a couple of guys, uh, you know, did one maybe did one of 'em do one? Stephanie or everybody? 00:15:22 Everybody at least did two, didn't they? Yeah. Did At least two. Yeah. And Kelly and I did four 00:15:27 or smaller amounts, you know, so I kind of did what Kelly did on his corn, on my cotton, and I, you know, and then I kind of fell in between JV and, and, 00:15:35 and Kelly on this, this corn plot. I'm just happy to be to, to have some ground in Iowa. I don't care what it makes, I'm just happy 00:15:43 to say I farm low ground in Iowa. I, I said this earlier, I had a genius and I got three wishes. 00:15:48 All three wishes would be out in farm in Iowa. I think we're gonna leave it right there. So finally, Matt is to farm in Iowa. 00:15:54 If you wanna keep up with these fertility challenges, we're gonna do a series of these recordings, these special recordings to cover it throughout the season 00:16:00 because it's a really cool thing that we're doing. So stay tuned, keep up with 'em. Obviously the main objective is learning for us, 00:16:06 but also sharing it with you. You got tight fertility budgets because you got tight commodity prices. 00:16:11 You know what? You might be overspending. Chances are you are overspending. Learn from these trials, learn from our experiments, 00:16:18 and then apply it to your farming operation. Uh, we can't all promise you you're gonna have land in Iowa, but you know what? 00:16:26 You can live vicariously through Matt and me, the older brother that Kelly always wish he had. Till next time. It's Kelly Garrett, Matt Miles, 00:16:32 Johnny Verell with Extreme Ag, Aaron Stall and Stephanie Lingo with agro liquid. Keep up with our stuff. You enjoy what we're doing here. 00:16:37 There's a whole library videos that these guys shoot at their farms available at Extreme Ag Do Farm also on our YouTube channel. 00:16:43 There's hundreds of episodes of cutting the curve and there's also a monthly webinar if you wanna become a member. 00:16:48 It's only seven $50 a year and you get access to these guys. And also the year end data 00:16:54 that is more than worth seven $50. Plus, you'll get special offers from some of our business partners. 00:16:58 Again, you can do all this extreme Ag Farm where you can also find our new hit show the Grain Reef taped at my farm right here with these guys. 00:17:04 It's a lot of fun to go check it out. Also subscribe to our YouTube channels next time. Thanks for being here. I'm Damien Mason 00:17:09 with extreme Ag Cutting Curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:17:16 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:17:20.635 --> 00:17:21.915