Farming Podcast | Precision In-Furrow Strategies Tested | XtremeAg

00:00:00 Economic fertility challenge with our friends over at Agro Liquid. That's what we're talking about. Yes. 00:00:04 This is a series of short episodes that we want to share with you because we're doing some cool stuff. 00:00:10 Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:20 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Basically three of our guys teamed up at different farms, uh, at each of other farms 00:00:30 and did different challenges with the folks from Agro Liquid. The one we're talking about right now is irrigated corn 00:00:37 with a goal of 300 bushels per acre and a budget of $40 for in furrow planter applied fertility. Uh, I got Joe Leslie 00:00:47 and Stephanie Linco with Agri Liquid joined by Chad Henderson, temple Roads and Kevin Matthews from Extreme Ag. 00:00:53 Um, this happened at your Farm Temple. So gonna tell us the setup. So, um, you know, this challenge plot came, kind 00:01:01 of came up, you know, last year we talked about all these challenge plots and you know, we thought 00:01:05 that it would be neat if we, if we carried them to everybody's farms. You know, we did one down there at Johnny's that I was in 00:01:10 and I got beat out pretty bad. I, I'm hoping that we're not gonna replicate what happened at Matt's farm last year. 00:01:16 I think everybody beat Matt at his farm on corn last year. He, he, he come and last. 00:01:21 So I'm really hoping that that didn't happen with ours. But, you know, we all take a different, you know, there's certain things that Chad looks at, um, 00:01:30 that he really, uh, he's developed over the years, you know, with putting on certain, um, things 00:01:36 that he feels like is is better for his corn crop. Kevin feels the same way. I kind of feel the same way. I feel like I know my ground better than everybody else, 00:01:45 but as we've proved with these challenge plots, we actually, maybe we don't know our ground quite as well as 00:01:52 what we think that we know it. You know what I mean? Because everyone of these cha I think Johnny might be the only one 00:01:56 that beat everybody on his own dirt is, isn't that right Stephanie? Yeah. So far. But we have a lot more data to come in. 00:02:03 Yeah. So I mean, so we we're kind of look at these things as, as it it is a learning process 00:02:09 and maybe we can find some pieces and parts. Maybe we can cut back on some fertility of, um, products that we don't really necessarily need. 00:02:18 Maybe we need something a little bit different than what we actually thought that we needed. So that, that's kind of the idea of it. 00:02:24 Um, I thought, you know me, I was like, well, you know, these guys are screwed. Like, I'm gonna take care of my own plot. 00:02:30 I'm gonna, I'm gonna fix it. Um, so I make sure that I don't lose on my own farm. But then Stephanie, you know, 00:02:37 she really threw a monkey wrench into it for, for all of us. Like it just came 00:02:42 and it just said treatment one, treatment two, treatment three, and has nothing else on the totes. So I have no idea whose is whose. I still don't know. 00:02:53 I won't know until I'm gonna hand in all the data and it'll just, she'll let me know which one of the treatments was mine 'cause I have no clue. 00:03:02 So, um, it is really, I mean, and honestly it's really well done the way that it's all set up. 00:03:09 You know, it was, it was easy for us to deal with. Um, she sent three different toots, um, all in for a mixes it. 00:03:16 It's pretty neat. Um, and all of 'em have different blends and everybody took a different stance. 00:03:22 All right. So Chad did a, a, Stephanie, you said you outlined basically, 'cause you, you sat down at Commodity Classic, 00:03:28 started plotting this out. One of our guys did a, you called it a more standard approach and one of 'em changed things up a little bit. 00:03:34 So kind of give us the overlay or the, sorry, the overview of what it looks like. Yeah, that's what's interesting about this is you can see 00:03:42 that some people have certain tendencies that they fall back on what they're comfortable with locally, whether they're at their own 00:03:48 farm or somebody else's. So, you know, temple heavily focused on phosphorus. You know, that's kind of the area of concern. 00:03:53 We hear Temple talk about phosphorus all the time. Really no different approach, um, here for his own farm as expected. 00:04:00 Uh, Chad kept it relatively simple. Um, you know, he just did some phosphorus, potassium, did a standard micronutrient package, um, 00:04:09 and went forward there to stay within that fertilizer budget. Um, Kevin got a little bit more picky as he went through 00:04:15 and kind of divided up those micronutrients instead of doing a single packet. Looked at which ones were low 00:04:22 and strictly focused on, um, the ones that that soil test said it needed. Got it. All right. Joe, you're 00:04:28 the guy that's out there in the region. You're the guy that's in Maryland where Temple Farms. Uh, have you actually gone and looked at this? 00:04:34 Yeah, well I was at Temple's Field Day and, and we, we looked at it there. I mean, to be honest with you, 00:04:39 the programs are similar enough. I don't know if that's because of how all the agro liquid employees were trained 00:04:45 to read soil samples and build programs. So I think the bigger differences will be seen when the combine hits. 00:04:50 I'm a little disappointed. I thought Temple knew which one was ours. I was working with Temple and I just, I thought 00:04:55 that was a shoe and I thought we were gonna win for sure Temple. But that's, that's awesome that you didn't know. 00:05:00 No, nothing that, But no, it's terrible. It's a terrible idea. No, I I think it's get what's really gonna be 00:05:06 neat about these trials. We all took little tweaks and made little differences. It'll be interesting, interesting to see if 00:05:13 that results in bushels. Like the way Kevin's is broke out by different micronutrients where I, 00:05:18 I simply rely on our micro 500 pack. It's a standard for our area. I throw in every starter mix and that. 00:05:24 So like Stephanie said, we all kind of lean on what we're used to. That's what I'm used to. So it'd be interesting if breaking 00:05:30 out the nutrients a little separately will show a yield difference, uh, in the trial. But yeah, you're not gonna see a lot of differences 00:05:37 through the season just 'cause of how they were similar enough programs. But I think the combine will tell the story. 00:05:44 I think the combat's gonna tell a story and I'm putting my money on Chad. Chad, you teamed up with Stephanie. 00:05:48 Stephanie has a track record. She won. She she beat Matt Miles on his own farm. She's a winner and uh, she teamed up with you. 00:05:58 You're the send it guy. My wager is on you too. Well, the prob the problem is she took us send it right out of it, you know, well we got a $40 budget. 00:06:08 We all had to stay within that budget. And, and that's, that's always fun. You know, you start scratching your head. 00:06:14 So me and Stephanie actually sit down back at Commodity Classic and we took a few minutes. It was in between one of our, uh, 00:06:20 recordings there, you know, at the booth. And we kind of went through some of these and said, what are you thinking? 00:06:24 That's what I'm thinking. And we, we put our heads together and gotta stay within that $40. 00:06:30 But, but what I'm like Temple and, and like Joe there, you know, it's hard to tell during the season, but what I really, 00:06:37 really like about these challenges is it gets you away from the blinders that you have on your own farm mm-hmm. 00:06:43 When somebody else can come to your farm and then they can change a few things. And you look at that program, you thought, 00:06:48 well why hadn't I been doing that? Like, like, you know, man, I ain't really thought about that. 00:06:52 So it really opens our eyes to things we may be lacking. And then we get to see the plant through the year 00:06:57 and then we get to harvest as well, Even for the Senate guy. And I think what you gotta admit here is if you're gonna 00:07:02 screw something up, you'd rather do it at Temples than at your own place. Oh, I know. That's how I would look at it 00:07:08 A hundred percent. Like, and then I'd rather blame it on him like, well, mine wouldn't applied correctly. 00:07:13 Uh, he probably didn't get it out in time. It may be still sitting in the shed right now. Well, You're doing the experiment. 00:07:21 If I had known, if I had known where, where Chad's was, I probably would've not even put it in. I would've just been like, yeah, this is, 00:07:29 I'm putting Chad my point, just straight water to my point. That's all it's gonna be. Yeah. But 00:07:32 See, he would've done that to me, but since Stephanie was involved, he's like, oh no, I gotta take care of Stephanie. You know? 00:07:38 Well actually not really, because Stephanie was with you and Stephanie hadn't been with me on any challenge plot. 00:07:43 So I've lost everyone that I've been in. So honestly, I'm here to screw her over as well. Great. It's got you got bullseye on your back, woman. 00:07:54 I'm in trouble. All right, I'm gonna go to Kevin. All right here. This is gonna sound, I'm throwing this out there. 00:07:59 Yes, it's probably instigated, but I'm throwing it out there. I'm in Indiana, this field bag, here's not even that great. 00:08:06 Behind my house it'd do 240 bushel corn without problem. If I irrigate it, I'd hit 300. 00:08:13 I don't need to even do these experiments. $40 or not. I don't think once you're throwing irrigation out there at Temple's place, I 00:08:21 don't think it's gonna be that hard of a deal. I I don't think it's gonna be that hard to do this. I think you're all gonna hit 300 bushels 00:08:26 and if you don't, maybe you should have me take over. Actually, we're probably not gonna have to hit 300 bushel. 'cause we had a green snap there, so 00:08:34 we're not gonna hit 300 bushel. It's, well, it's, it's, it'll be interesting. See, I'm, I'm being a little bit facetious, 00:08:40 but the point is, once you throw irrigation into the mix, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to attain this. 00:08:45 So I guess is it really gonna be the fertility or is it really more matter of, uh, something else? It's probably gonna be more location in the field, 00:08:53 but one thing you guys gotta remember, we don't stand a chance on this thing. I mean, Stephanie, she's got 'em labeled, nobody knows which 00:09:01 and which, so nobody's gonna know which one's mine. Which one's Chad's which one's he, uh, She, Bottom line Stephanie decides wins. Stephanie, 00:09:10 It I win. Stephanie wins you. I mean, she, she's not only the house, but she, she, she deals the cards that are marked. 00:09:19 These are marked cards Blend. She's blending it. Like who knows if she even stayed in budget, You know, right now we did test 1, 2, 3. 00:09:29 But the thing is, is you don't know which one of them is, so obviously it's gonna be the winner. 00:09:34 Exactly. She's outsmarted us on this one, boys. She's got us. But, well, you know, one thing you was talking about there, Damien, a lot 00:09:43 of people really assume that, hey, if I'm growing 220, 250 bushel, you gimme irrigation, I can do 300, I ain't no problem. 00:09:51 300 ain't always as easy to give as everybody thinks it is. Is it Chad? I was about to say that, you know, that Damien saying 00:09:57 that is spoken from a true person, they just don't know. Yeah, just don't mean nothing. Exactly. Somebody that dunno, 00:10:05 You know, mean At Stephanie. I mean, look at Stephanie and Ryan on, on, on their own farm, you know what I'm saying? 00:10:10 Like, it, it, it's just, it's it's just tough. Yeah. I don't know if we've ever hit 300. We've come close, but we've never hit 300 in Michigan 00:10:20 On our, well, obviously I was doing that to get the pot stir, but there's a lot of acres that are not irrigated, right? 00:10:26 Yeah. 1% of my entire state probably is you start going to the Illinois, the Iowa and all that. Uh, and, and Ohio, it's just, it's not irrigated. 00:10:35 So it becomes a natural assumption like, well God, if I could have just, yeah, we didn't give it an inch of rain from the end of July until, 00:10:43 you know, sometime in September. What if I'd had irrigation? Uh, these, these, Oh lord, if you'd had irrigation, 00:10:48 USDA would've printed a a 280 bushel average for the nationals. Yeah, right. Could have brought corn prices down to 2, 2 75. 00:10:56 Uh, it'd been a dollar 50 man, buck 50. Um, so what's the biggest, uh, what's the biggest thing that you see, Stephanie, you do this stuff all the time, you 00:11:05 and Joe, you're the fertility experts. What are you seeing? What do you, what do you, what do you think the big takeaway's gonna be here? 00:11:10 Well, I think the lesson behind all of this is how to manage budgets. You know, this one was challenging, 00:11:17 $40 isn't a lot for an infer program. Um, and so we were just looking to see reality $40 is not a lot, 00:11:24 Is not a lot, you know, and that's the reality that we're at right now. You know, if we're not going to get the bushels, we have 00:11:31 to cut back what our expenses are. Um, and so a $40 budget for a lot of guys that are at 200 bushel corn is reality. 00:11:39 Um, and so that's what the market we're dealing with right now with low commodity prices is we don't have as many dollars to put into that fertility program, um, 00:11:47 if we wanna stay in business for next year. So I think we will learn that we can manage our money, um, and come up with a program that we're still successful. 00:11:54 Will we hit 300 bushel? Maybe not, but will we stay profitable? You know, probably 00:12:00 so we can be in this business again next year. Yeah. And that, that's the part I really enjoyed it. I felt like it was really realistic. 00:12:07 Sometimes we do these plots and it's the kitchen sink effect push the bush holds and then it's this big price tag and we do grower shows 00:12:14 and they come in and they go, we're never gonna spend that kind of money. Or we're not this. I think growers can look at this 00:12:19 and go, okay, I can do this on my farm. This makes sense. And I also would say Temple and I spent the most money, we got the 39 95 00:12:26 and we tried really hard to get the 39 99 we Yeah. Moving decimal points. And anyway, but I, to me it was a realistic trial 00:12:35 and I think growers can really take something from this and, and utilize it on their own operation. 00:12:40 Well, you know, you talk about $40 budget. It does, you know, it doesn't seem like a lot, but this is, you keep in mind this is an infer treatment. 00:12:49 And when you use things like this in furrow, you gotta keep in mind that the efficiency of products like these in furrow, you know, you, 00:12:59 you could be getting 30 to 50% more efficiency at, at least out of an infer application versus then a 00:13:07 broadcast application. You know what I mean? So we're, you're getting a lot more out of $40 than what you really think. Mm-hmm. 00:13:16 Yep. Absolutely. And that, and this is where we've, we've kind of had this resounding theme that this is 00:13:21 where things are gonna go, uh, putting it out there more, more precision placement 00:13:26 and more exactly what you need versus it, it, it's, it's tight out there, right? So whether you're making 300 bushels or not, it's tight. 00:13:32 So 40 bucks might be the new budget. We're doing the economic fertility challenge with Agri Liquid and Extreme Ag. 00:13:37 We're doing a whole bunch of the series of these recordings so that you can watch them and follow it right along. 00:13:42 And also take some of these lessons and apply 'em to your farm. Go and check these out. Also, videos from the field days 00:13:49 and videos that these guys are shooting in their farms. There's hundreds and hundreds of 'em, but even from this year. 00:13:54 So you can use them to help yourself farm a little bit better. And remember, there's hundreds of episodes 00:13:58 of ext extreme acts cutting the curve. So go check it out. If you wanna learn more about Extreme or about, uh, agro liquids products, 00:14:04 where do they go, miss Stephanie? Uh, our website, agro liquid.com has all the information they need. 00:14:11 Got it. Thanks for tuning in. Keep up with all the cool stuff. We got almost a dozen 00:14:14 of these videos about the economic fertility challenge. We're doing it on corn wheel and soy. We're doing it on wheat. We're even doing it on cotton. 00:14:20 That's right. So anyway, check it out. Till next time, thanks for being here. I'm Damon Mason with extreme Ag cutting the curve. 00:14:25 That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 381 00:14:34.105 --> 00:14:35.345