Podcast: Getting Seed Treatment Right for Maximum Yields

00:00 Getting the right seed treatment to maximize yield. You know what? It's not all the same. In fact, all seed treatments are not created equal. 00:07 That's what we're gonna be talking about in this edition of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 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. 00:21 This episode is brought to you by Simon Innovation, protect your crops and maximize yield with a full lineup 00:26 of innovative precision tools engineered to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of your sprayer. Visit simon innovations.com 00:34 and start getting more ROI out of your sprayer. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey there. Welcome to another awesome edition 00:43 of Extreme as cutting the curve. We are talking about seed treatments and we've got a lot to share with you 00:48 because I've got guys that know a lot about this topic. I got Temple Roads. Join us from the sprayer in, uh, Eastern Shore, Maryland. 00:54 I got Kelly Garrett coming to us from Iowa, and I've got Mario Cardillo, he's with Corteva Biologicals, and we went 01:02 through all the different things about this before we hit record. So these guys are gonna get right into it. 01:07 I'm gonna start off with, uh, a segue from a previous episode or an episode that maybe you've not seen. 01:12 It was about infer treatment and Kelly says, you know, only 10 or 15% of planters in the United States of America 01:19 are set up with in furrow. But you know what? If you don't have in furrow on your planter, the next best thing you can do, Kelly, 01:28 is get the right treatment treatment. So take me, take me, start me off with that. You know, well, like Damien said, only 10 01:36 or 15% of planters have that. We see a great benefit from it. We have an ROI, you know, a lot of people talk about their, 01:43 they're skeptical about putting inferral fertility on their planter because they're afraid it's gonna slow 'em down. 01:48 And admittedly it does. But if that is a concern of yours, is that the quantity of acres you're getting done, you really should look at 01:57 advancing or progressing along your seed treatment, treating the seed with more things. You know, uh, farmer owned seed treaters are becoming 02:04 more and more prevalent. Uh, you could treat your own seed. Uh, some of the things that we treat with, we want 02:11 to treat it, then we wanna plant it the same day, you know, so there's a timeliness in it there. 02:15 But a lot of the things that, that we can put in our inferral program can now be applied as a seed treatment. 02:21 And it's a good second option if you don't want put liquid on your plant Seed treatments. 02:27 Uh, Mario, before, uh, we, we go over our man, uh, temple, you were talking about it 02:33 and, uh, you know, you said, what are we trying to do with our seed treatment? Are we trying to prevent disease? 02:39 Are we trying to do this or this? So it's kind of like, what's our objective? And it's a bunch of things, 02:44 but that's not one size fits all. It's not, uh, you said, you said all seed not created equal. So take me there. 02:51 No, absolutely. And you know, with seed treatment, Kelly said it really well, if you don't have internal capability, this is the, 02:59 you know, one of the best options that you have. We wanna make sure that we get this crop off to a strong start in the spring, uh, to be able to maximize 03:08 that emergence. Uh, beautiful emergence is gonna have better root system, healthier seeding, uh, that is gonna create that, um, 03:18 you know, maximum yield potential throughout the season. Now, when you look at the type of, uh, seed treatment, 03:24 you're gonna have crop protection seed treatments, you're gonna have bio stimulants, micronutrient seed treatments. 03:31 That seems small. You know, there's so much that we can into that seed, but there are technologies, um, nowadays 03:39 that can actually give a boost to that seed, uh, to create that a physiological response that we're all looking for, 03:47 which is maximize emergence, make a uniform as possible. Temple. When you think about seed treatment, what, 03:55 why is the primary objective of you treating your seed? I mean, when you, as soon as you say seed treatment, everybody goes right to fungicide, insecticide, 04:05 but Kelly's right, there's so many other things now I have in furrow. Um, so I can kind of accomplish a lot 04:12 of the other things in furrow that I wanna do, whether it's a PGR, whether it's a micronutrient, whatever it is. 04:19 Well, now we've got so many different options out there that can be done. Like Kelly said, if you, there's a lot of these on farm. 04:28 Uh, Matt Miles has got one, he's got a on farm seed treater, and he can customize whatever blend that he wants 04:35 for any acre that he wants. And my, what I would want on a seed treatment might be very, very different than what Kelly wants or Johnny Rell 04:43 or whoever it might be. But that's the neat thing about seed treatments. And then you can actually, I'm not saying 04:50 that it replaces in furrow, but it is a tremendous option for a guy that doesn't wanna go through the in furrow 04:59 problems that we go through. Kelly and I go through it all the time. I've got probably six 05:04 or seven different things that go in that are going in furrow. If I did a, a seed treatment 05:09 or I had my own seed treater, I could potentially take majority of them out of the, of the system. But wait a minute, you still have you, are you planting, 05:21 are you planting seed with no treatment on it just because you have infer? No, no. You still put I I still, I still put treatment on 05:27 seed all So what's on your, I put on what's on your seed right now? You're, you're On, on my, on my seed. 05:32 It's just fungicide and SIC side. That's the only thing that goes on. You don't need a PGR, you don't need, uh, 05:38 Anything like that. Well, my pg my pgs are going on in furrow. Got, like I said, you know, I'm, I'm doing a lot of things 05:45 in furrow that I could be doing as a seed treatment and getting away with it, you know what I mean? You can, you're getting to the point now 05:52 that they can put micronutrients on, they can put, you know what I mean? You could put, you could just put zinc on if you figured, 05:58 felt like you just needed zinc. You can put your PGR on there. You can put your fungicide and sex side, you can have all 06:04 of those things in your seed treatment and it, it kind of opens up a door, you know, because I I, if I had to guess to, 06:13 to retrofit a 16 row 30 inch planter for corn, let's say, or beans, whichever one you you're talking about, 06:22 if you went out there and put, had to put infer on that thing, you'd have well over 20 k, maybe 20 5K, maybe even higher in that in forrow system. 06:35 Well, a seed treater, a on farm, farm seed treater is roughly around 30 K. So, but you can treat everything right there. 06:46 I i, you know what I mean? To me, that's one of the things that I am looking at. It kind of opens up another door 06:52 and another avenue. Alright, Mario Or, or Kelly, whoever wants to take this, I was just gonna ask 'cause it seems like you can do a lot 06:58 with seed treatment in the old days. You said before we hit record, uh, Kelly, you said it, you know, some of us s remember 07:05 before there was treatment on seed? I think, I think that became about more in the seventies, eighties, I think. 07:11 Okay. Right. But you know, Mario can correct me is, am I right? When did seed treated seed became more of a thing? 07:17 Not a, not, not the, with hybridization, it was well after that. Am I right? Well, the corn has been treated for as long 07:23 as I can remember, but the soybeans that that is, you know, in the last 20 years, I would say yeah, the soy, the, 07:30 the treatment on soybeans has become a, a more accepted You. And you said early when it got to where then it's like, 07:37 hell, you know what, maybe we'll get, we should go ahead and put a treatment on these soybeans. 07:42 Well, it might have just been, uh, food coloring because it didn't seem like it wasn't really all that scientifically advanced 20 years ago. 07:48 Mario's nodding in his head, take me there. So in, in my opinion is seed treatments are extremely important, but I think the most important part is 07:56 to use seed treatments that are proven because you wanna make sure that it doesn't interfere with your plantability of that seed. 08:03 So we can go crazy and dumping a lot of solutions into that seed. The real estate of the seed is so pressures 08:10 that we wanna make sure that we're putting the right stuff. We don't wanna, we don't wanna mess 08:15 with your plantability simulation. Uh, we wanna make sure that we bring value instead of, you know, bringing a problem. 08:22 And we do have some solutions that have been proven. Um, Kelly, you, you mentioned you using some of these, uh, PGRs and some of these biostimulants and, 08:32 and I believe that everybody can, can, um, benefit from this technology if you don't have inro, but I agree it may not be a replacement, 08:39 but it's a really good option if you don't have that inro capability. Kelly. Um, so let's just go 08:47 with soybeans, since you talked about it. We've evolved from no treatment to maybe, uh, uh, uh, some color, some coloring on them 08:56 that might have done something and might have done nothing to today. If you put, and you're not hardly putting out soybeans this 09:01 year, but on the few acres of soybeans you are putting out, what's the treatment on? 09:05 How has it evolved from 20 years ago with nothing to food coloring to today? You know, well, we have infer capability on our soybean 09:14 planter, so there's about six things that go on there. But in the seed treatment is a fungicide, biologicals, and then also the inoculate 09:22 or the three things that are in the treatment for us And the biological, the purpose of the bio, the, the inoculate does what, 09:31 Uh, the inoculate helps with, you know, especially, uh, when you haven't planted soybeans on the ground for a while, you need to inoculate the soybeans versus, you know, some 09:40 of the pathogens or diseases that could be there and do. And, and so now we find 09:45 that we inoculate the soybeans on every acre every year, but especially as heavy a corn 09:50 as I am when soybeans haven't been planted on that ground for a while. The inoculate is a, uh, protects the seed. 09:56 Okay. And then the other one was either a, you said a fungicide, uh, on the treatment. Yep. Okay. And then you said a biological, the purpose 10:02 of the biological is what you're hoping to ahan achieve with the biological seed treatment is Just to try to jumpstart that soil 10:09 and the root system and to get things going. Okay. So it's, it's a, it's a stimulant. Um, not it's, it is not, you're not worried about the, 10:17 you're not worried about the stress. You think you've got that with some other stuff? No, That, no, we've got that on the in forrow treatment. Yes. 10:23 Got it. Okay. So that's where we are today. Um, we said you getting this the thing, the seed treatment, right? 10:31 What have you done wrong? And I'll ask anybody here, uh, the farmers can think about it, what they've done wrong. 10:36 Mario, what do you think when we say getting it right, what do you think a somebody that says, yeah, I don't know, I put seed treatment on it, 10:43 but it didn't, it didn't help me out. What did they get wrong? Yes. So I would say you gotta check on 10:51 who your supplier is and what the knowledge of that, you know, person or or rep is as well. 10:57 Wanna make sure that you are adding the right balance of either hormones or micronutrients that can, you know, cause any damage and, 11:06 and actually bring that value. For instance, there may be a product that is a micronutrient product with a bottle borum. 11:12 We don't wanna do that as a seed treatment, right? So we wanna make sure that we know what we're putting there. Um, again, that in notation, soybeans is crucial, right? 11:20 Like for instance, but if you are not feeding that, uh, bacteria, you may actually not maximize not maximizing that, uh, performance. 11:29 We do have a product, I know that it's prob based conversation today, but we do have a, a prob bio for advance has been, uh, 11:36 proven for many years as a seed treatment, two fluid ounces per hundred pounds of seed. It brings cobal andum. 11:43 Those two key elements are gonna be huge to maximize the, and that nitrogen fixation. 11:49 So it complements really well. So adding products that don't compliment each other may be one of the biggest mistakes. 11:57 Mario, I just wanna point out here something, I don't know how well, you know, Evans, that's the, the, the, 12:02 the chief agronomist there at Garrett Land and Cattle. It's safe to say that English is not your native tongue. And you just said molybdenum way better than 12:12 Evans has ever said Molybdenum, and he only speaks English and was born speaking English. 12:18 And he still doesn't say molybdenum as well as you do. In fact, you say it where it almost sounds like romantic molybdenum. 12:24 I, I'm telling you what I want, I want Evans to learn how to say both molybdenum and molybdenum. 12:29 I think it's awesome. I really appreciate it. I've been blamed to love nu too much. 12:35 So I probably bring that element, uh, everywhere that I speak. So, um, I truly believe that that is one of the components 12:43 and one of the elements that is missing in many operations that can actually bring that yield level, uh, 12:50 to the next, uh, you know, step. So staying on molybdenum, I think we should go in then about seed 12:55 treatments and the micros. We recorded a previous episode, uh, mare where we talked about the mini micros, you know, 13:03 'cause everybody was about macros. And then starting maybe, I don't know, a decade ago we started hearing about zinc or boron 13:09 and then Kelly and some other guys said, you know what? Then there's the le layer after that. And then the layer after that, 13:16 and we'll, we're calling 'em the mini micros, which are hugely important. Is seed treatment the place to address that? Anybody? 13:23 Kelly, is seed treatment a place to address many micros? Uh, temple is, is seed treatment. 13:27 The place to address the mini micros Seed treatment could be a place to, to, he brought up the, the molly, I'm just gonna call it Molly 13:35 because I'm as bad as Evans. But um, when you, when you talk about that Molly is extremely important 13:42 and the soybeans plant at the beginning, at the end, it doesn't make as big of a difference. You know, you can, you can put on Molly in the beginning, 13:52 you know, in furrow or on a seed treatment and it can make a huge difference in difference in that plant. 13:58 But if you put Molly on at a point or aqua or whatever, you know, depending on what kind of Molly you get, um, way in the end in our stages 14:08 you might not see anything at all. But Molly sets up kind of what I would say like the super highway 14:15 to translocate things up and down that plant. So the earlier you can get something like that in the better off you are. 14:22 So going on as a seed treatment, Mario's, right? That's awesome place for that. I like it micro because, okay, you guys have in furrow, 14:32 so the person doesn't have in furrow should their, we're talking about getting seed treatment, right? For maximizing yield. If a, if a guy doesn't have in furrow 14:39 seed treatment's the right way to go, and I'm guessing that if they're listening to this, they're like, holy crap, 14:44 I didn't really think about putting micros in my seed treatment. Is that, or, or am I wrong? Do they always think about that? 14:49 I I don't know that I'm no, you, No, you, you should absolutely look at that. These guys are right. And then even if you have an inferral 14:56 program using the seed treatment to kind of lighten the load on the planter or some of the, some of the things 15:03 that we're talking about potentially won't mix well in that inferral mix. You could put, you know, the things 15:10 that won't mix well using, getting that from a seed seed treatment application to take it out of and lighten the load on the planter, uh, 15:18 a hundred ways to skin this cat. And, and you should really look at all of that. So when you think about the, go ahead Jim. 15:26 No, you know, uh, Kelly's right? I mean, and think about like when you're using inoculant, like the old way we used inoculant on soybeans years ago 15:36 was, I remember it when I was a kid, there was these bags, we got 'em at southern states 15:41 and you know, they came in a case and you ripped the bag open and it was one bag per hopper box. 15:46 And dad had us out there with a stick stirring it up each, each hopper. You know, you know exactly what I'm talking about, 15:53 Kelly, I done. And it was always about, you know what I mean? And inoculation it helps the beans 15:58 and not nodulate better fix nitrogen back in the soil. And then, you know, a plant, you know, a soybean plant, you know, we wanna inoculate a soybean plant 16:08 because if we inoculate it, uh, if we don't, a, a plant can only produce about enough nitrogen in a soybean plant to get somewhere around 80 or 85 bushel. 16:19 You gotta have a lot of inoculation on, or you gotta have inoculation on your plant or, or on your plants early on, 16:26 or your seeds early on in order to produce as much nodulation as possible to get it performing up to speed. 16:34 All that stuff happens there. Think about, um, inoculation on seed treatment. Every seed is coated. 16:42 Going back to the old way of, you know, it was kind of like a graphite inoculate. We threw it on there and we stirred it all up. 16:50 Do you really think we got every seed coated correctly? No. Nope. No. Never did. But seed traders will do that. 16:57 Okay, now that brings up another point. I'm, uh, go over here to Mario then Kelly on this one. Um, temple just says, 17:05 do you really think we got the every seed coated when we're out there with a broom handle and a, and a vat? 17:10 Probably not equipment's better, the products presumably are better, et cetera, but is it still a risk that you're trying 17:19 to do too much with seed treatment? The person who listens to this might be really gung-ho and say, oh my God, now I gotta figure it out. 17:27 I'm going to put this, this, this, this, this on my seed. And is it getting to where too much is not? 17:34 Is it getting to where diminishing returns or even it, it works against each other? Is that a problem? And seed treatment? 17:40 I don't know if I would say diminishing returns, but there's only so much you can put on there. It's just, it's a limited amount of space 17:46 and it's a limited amount of liquid that it can soak up and things like that. So yes, that's why I would say that an inferral program 17:53 still probably has some advantages over seed treatment, but a seed treatment can go a long way. Yeah. So the, the point is inferral still is the superior 18:02 way in terms of to get the most product out there. We're not judging, it's just the spear way. It's just that because limitations on seed treatment 18:09 and Mario's nodding his head were, you can only put so much crap on a, on a bean. Yeah, You wanna make sure that, as I said, 18:16 I mean maybe even the active is done, um, negatively interact with each other. You gotta make sure that your plantability 18:25 is there the way you need it because it's not, you're hurting yourself as well. Uh, but yes, maximize 18:31 that seed treatment as much as you can. That real estate is so small that you gotta make sure that you're putting the right product in. 18:38 That's on. That's it. And inside that's it as well. We said before, um, mistakes that you think you've made or something you've learned from 18:45 and why your seed treatment program would be better now than it was just five years ago. 18:49 You got anything Temple? Yeah, I mean my seed treatment's much better. I mean, what I really only use a fungicide, 18:59 sex side inoculate, and then they put like a, it's like a poly coating so we don't have to add as much graphite powder or whatever. 19:08 So I mean, that's really what my seed treatment is. I utilize my infer to cover everything else. But you know, after having this conversation right here, 19:18 you know, looking into a seed treater on farm seed treater could potentially save you a lot of money 19:24 and you can customize that for your farm versus going out and buying a seed treatment for let's say 12 19:33 or $14 a unit. Yeah, yeah. You can customize what you want to do and which can save you a lot of money, 19:41 but it also can make you a lot of money. It's one more thing you gotta manage and, and, and be precision about, et cetera, et cetera. 19:48 But would you vary it even by soil type? Would you vary it by high ground versus low ground? Would you vary it by anything like that? 19:54 No, but I would, I would definitely vary. Like, you know, let's just say my really, really early planet beans, um, 20:01 I might put something on there for southern death syndrome. Well, my late planet beans, I might not, you know, 20:07 but sometimes I end up ordering too much seed for the early season. It dries up. I really don't need, and it gets warm. 20:14 I really don't need any more of that stro for sudden death syndrome or something like that where I 20:19 wouldn't have put it on there. But that's a, that's a big expense that I expended on that acre and didn't really need it. 20:27 You can customize every acre plus you're getting a, i i, I don't know that it makes that big of a difference, 20:33 but it makes a difference when we talk about biology and biologicals and that kind of thing. Um, when you have something that's fresh to treat it, 20:42 it's immediately ready to go. You know, inoculation. Some inoculations are like, like that. They say that it only lasts a certain amount of days 20:50 and then it kind of loses its ability. Well, you have that ability to do it right then, so it's customized. 20:57 Kelly, have you made any mistakes with your seed treatment or anything that wasn't really a mistake, 21:01 but you decided it wasn't, it wasn't effective or it didn't give you a bump? The mistake that we made, uh, back when they came out 21:11 and things like that, uh, and then we probably hung onto that too long, was looking for the lowest cost, not the biggest ROII think 21:19 that mistake gets made in agriculture a lot. We always want to be a low cost producer. We maybe should want to be the largest ROI producer. 21:28 Yeah, and looking at it lowest Cost versus, yeah, lowest cost per dollar of gain is fine, but not lowest cost. Lowest cost, 21:37 Yes, that's right. I mean, because maybe the low, maybe sometimes, sometimes it's worth what you paid for, you know, 21:43 and maybe it really was just food coing. That's the mistake we made is not educating ourself on the possibilities soon enough. 21:51 Mario Cillo, get me outta here. You're the, you're the global agronomy lead for Corteva biologicals. 21:58 We said the title of this is Getting the right Seed treatment for maximized yields or getting seed treatment rights for maximized yields. 22:05 Well, the point is, we're all about getting the right seed treatment. This varies by geography, it varies 22:08 by your goals, objectives, et cetera. But there's probably a few fundamental things that are universal when it comes 22:14 to seed treatments. Give 'em A hundred percent. Uh, I believe in the past we talked that crop yield is the result of interaction of genetic, 22:22 you know, potential that seed environment and management, that management is gonna be crucial. Everything that you can do to eliminate some 22:30 of the stresses early on and and stimulate that seed for, uh, proper and uniform emergence 22:36 and you know, really good, uh, root system and healthy seedlings is gonna get you set up to maximize the yield potential. 22:46 We at Cortel biologicals, uh, are approaching plant performance with a full season program. 22:51 Uh, we believe fully in in furrow. We believe fully in seed treatments, uh, for your start, but also those applications that follow at herbicide timing 23:01 and fungicide timing. We truly believe that in the future we're gonna, um, have growers that are gonna be outside of those crop protect 23:10 and applications to minimize those, um, you know, losses in the future and maximize their yield potential. So really happy to, to cover this 23:17 because I think it's extremely important for the growers, uh, not only in the US but around the world. 23:23 His name is Mario Carillo and he's, uh, an awesome dude. He is with Corteva Biologicals. 23:29 Here's the thing, we're gonna be doing more episodes with people from his company, maybe him, and they've got kind of a neat concept. 23:36 We're gonna be rolling 'em out in a phase of start, grow, and finish. So the idea here is what really matters right now 23:44 and what, while you're planting, what are you thinking about? Maybe you can't alter it this year, 23:48 but you sure as heck can next year. So we're going through a start, a grow a finish. So the stuff we'll be recording is addressing things at 23:55 those critical times in your farming operation. Maybe in time for you to make an adjustment, but certainly while it's on your mind 24:00 that you can do it next year. Mario Carillo, thanks for being here. Um, Kelly Garrett and Temple Rhodes with extreme Ag. 24:09 Both these guys are hosting field days, as are all the extreme ag guys. We're gonna be at Kelly's on June 13th in area in Iowa. 24:16 I encourage you to be there. Lots of great stuff. If you're an extreme Ag member for just seven $50 a year, you can come to the members only dinner the evening 24:24 before we can meet our industry friends and also us. We'll be there in a more social setting then on June 13th, starting at one o'clock with registration. 24:31 Or maybe it's two. Either way, it's in the afternoon, you'll wanna be there and you're gonna have more learning, more information, more interaction. 24:37 And panel session. We're gonna be doing, uh, learning sessions, uh, like this at all the, uh, field days. 24:43 May 16th is the first one. Henderson, Henderson Farms, Madison, Alabama, June 13th in area in Iowa. 24:49 June 20, oh, look, that June, June 20, gotta look at the counter. June 27th down in McGee, Arkansas with the Miles Brothers. 24:56 And then we're gonna be at Temple Roads August 22nd. Before we go there, we're gonna be with Matthews at the Kevin Matthews farm 25:03 with their new baby, uh, on August 8th. So look at the field days posting Ont Extreme Act Farm. So next time, thanks for being here. Mario Kelly Temple. 25:12 I'm Damien Mason with Extreme Act cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 25:20 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out of your farming operation. 25:25 Cutting the curve is brought to you by Simon Innovations. Don't let your sprayer's limitations hold you back. 25:31 Visit simon innovations.com and upgrade your sprayer's capabilities now.