2025 Farming Strategies: Nutrient Strategies, Cutting Fertilizer Costs Without Sacrificing Yield
26 Feb 2510m 38s

Discussing strategic changes for the 2025 growing season. With rising input costs and economic uncertainty, Temple, Charlie, Alexander and Jake explore ways to optimize fertility programs while maintaining yields on their farms.

00:00:00 Hey guys, it's Temple from Extreme Ag. I'm joined here with uh, Charlie Legger, uh, from JCK Farms and his son Jacob. 00:00:07 And then, uh, my son Alexander. And what we're gonna talk about today, Charlie, I guess, I guess we're gonna discuss like the changes we're gonna 00:00:14 make for 2025, knowing the year that we're going into, um, do we change our fertility plan? 00:00:21 Do we, do we change our direction? Do I don't know. I think we have to. I don't think we have a choice. Um, because of the, you know, all, all the, the, 00:00:30 the insecurities of not knowing where we are in input costs. I don't know. We have a choice. 00:00:35 We gotta back off something, um, from what we've been doing just because of the, of the, well, we can back 00:00:41 Off the scare Actic. Well, we can't back off equipment 'cause we already own it. We can't back off seed 'cause we gotta plan it. 00:00:47 That's true there. There's givens there. But man, some of this, you know, I knew I'm doing moving toward chicken litter, 00:00:53 doing more chicken litter than I am dry fertility commercial fertilizer. I'm trying to back off some of that and do some naturals 00:00:58 and that gets some more miners that I'm getting outta the chicken litter that I can't get outta commercial fertilize. 00:01:05 I just feel like I gotta try something different back off. You know, we've been doing a lot 00:01:09 of front load in furrow program. I mean, we're spending anywhere from 45 to $60 an acre right outta gate. 00:01:15 And of course, you know, that's not include, That's not even I include in our Tuba two program Yeah. And the side and all that. 00:01:20 Yeah. I was saying how, how much does our Tuba two program drag us backwards by filling up every five 00:01:24 seconds. Yeah. Like That. And then you talk anhydrous, pre-plant anhydrous, which is wonderful. 00:01:30 It's wonderful product. You're Killing biology, But, and I'm killing biology. You're shooting yourself in the foot outta the gate. 00:01:35 But then also that's an expense, a big expense. And the court's not even outta the ground yet. Yeah. So all of a sudden now it doesn't come up. 00:01:43 We have something happen. That's, that's my fear, is you, you can't take that risk. You can't throw, you can't front load all that money. 00:01:51 I just feel like I can anyway. Just, well We talked about it before we, what we did, you know, last year, like we, we kind of spoon fed our finances. 00:02:00 We spoon fed the plant, we know we can get away with it and, and we know that we did it. 00:02:05 Yes. And the, the program that I chose last year, it worked pretty well. And also we played the, you know, 00:02:11 in my case I played the weather game because we were having a dry year. So as we were calling, they were calling for rains. 00:02:17 We had some rains then I did go out there. Now did I shoot myself in the foot a little bit? Yes. Because I was a little nitrogen deficient in some 00:02:24 of the corn because I should have put it out. You know, it's one of them things where, you know, you really gotta be careful how you play this game. 00:02:32 Yeah. As far as feeding the crop, because I actually, I probably should have gone out there, put a little bit 30 pounds wide drop and I held back 00:02:40 because it wasn't looking good. You know, we weren't getting, and then we did get the rain. I put it out there. I was probably about a two week lag, 00:02:46 10 day lag that my plans were a little nicer. So, so what did I ultimately, what did I lose? I don't know. It's kind of, it seemed like a pretty good, 00:02:55 I still average good corn for the weather year that we had. Right. I think that across the board 00:02:59 Think does a lot too. What we didn't throw everything out front. We helped it, you know, we waited for a rain 00:03:03 and then hit it with something else and then, you know, kind of weed it out and it was dry, dry, dry and had another rain. 00:03:09 We hit it with something else. And I, I agree with him. Like it's a good Thing we didn't throw it all out front. 00:03:14 I, I tell you what, it'd be bad news if we had thrown it out front. I don't know. I don't know what we would've done. 00:03:21 I really don't like, I know that it's been a struggle paying bills as it is. I can't imagine what it would've been had we done that. 00:03:28 So, I mean, having said all that, like do we, do we pay more attention to an infer program and a two two program and maybe even a a Hopper Box program. 00:03:39 Maybe we play the Hopper Box program in there. Like, will that save us on putting as much stuff in our infer program and we can kind of piece 00:03:49 and play it all together? I I I don't know. I I feel like that's a, another tool in the toolbox. It's definitely a, it is definitely a help in the hopper 00:03:58 box treatment if, if everything is in there because we're having to add so many products to equal what's In that Hopper box treatment 00:04:06 Only that let's just use for instance, like, um, for lack of better terms, let's just say nutri charge, right? 00:04:11 Uh, we know that nutri charge in furrow we use 3.2 ounces, right? And that's one thing that we're mixing in infer Blend works. 00:04:19 Great. Well some studies have shown that like 6.4 ounces in furrow works even better. But that's doubling your 00:04:27 amount of money that you're putting out. But in a hyper box treatment, you're only treating the seed. You're not treating everything in between the seeds 00:04:37 that other six inches, you know, in between the seeds. So you're actually getting more on it. So it doesn't make it more efficient to do it this way 00:04:47 than the other way. So I think that we have some pieces and parts that we need to play and you know, Alexander just went over a program with us 00:04:55 and we went through all these different scenarios. Realistically, I think they're all very close in numbers as far as what are we gonna do? 00:05:04 Like our total programs that were, that we're putting out there, they're all within a couple dollars an acre. But 00:05:10 It's the efficiency and the easy use and all that stuff. Yep. That makes it, that makes it Well, 00:05:15 And and you don't realize how much it is. But I mean, how much time do we waste on a turn rail? Yeah, that's, that's what I mean the efficiency 00:05:20 and the, you know, and your return on investment. That's why we sat down and we figured up all these different things. 00:05:25 'cause what's gonna be the easiest for the biggest bang for our buck, you know? Yeah. Well and I mean, 00:05:30 We're already talking. I mean, looking at what we've drawn up here, I mean it's, it's, I'm already talking half of 00:05:35 what I've been spending in an earn for our program, we're outta gate per acre. Yeah. I mean that, I mean we're not talking at 10% savings. 00:05:42 We're talking 50%. Yeah. Math Might, Big, big difference might be the difference between making a dollar and not. 00:05:49 Exactly. And, and the corn market is so volatile we don't know what's gonna happen. And like, you know, Alexander was talking earlier like 00:05:57 what happens if, you know, our president puts some more tariffs on something and all of a sudden our, 00:06:03 our cost on our fertility coming outta Canada is now 25% higher than what it was six months ago. 00:06:11 And I still feel like I don't want to sacrifice yield, we can't, whatever. I'm So you 00:06:15 Don't need to yield paying, I mean bushels pay bills. Yeah. We can't sacrifice. We can only do but so much, I'm going back pounds versus bushels. 00:06:25 You know, if you got a healthy plant kernels, you know what I mean? Kernel size, seed size, you know, soybean size. Um, yep. 00:06:32 So I mean we talked about a corn program. We talked about a bean program. What are you gonna do for, what are you gonna do for Jacob? 00:06:38 You planted all these acres of double crop beans and you hate your drill. You absolutely hate it. 00:06:45 I don't know how many times he is like, I'd like to back in the woods and be done with it. Oh yeah. You hate it. Yeah. Mine. 00:06:50 That's So what do you, I mean, but if we can get rid of like, 'cause your dad was talking about like maybe we wanna go 00:06:59 back to the planter and I have an infer treatment. Maybe we can make a difference on our double crop beans. Is like a planter box treatment, is that like an option for, 00:07:07 for you guys to run through the drill or? Man, that would certainly save, if I could run, if I could do the same. 00:07:13 I, I was doing early beans, the early early beans I was planting before corn. I felt like I have to do an in furrow program 00:07:21 to make it work, you know, and get the be and I've had look three years I've done it, four years I've done it and had that was the best bean crop. 00:07:28 Best beans we've grown in years. Yeah. I mean forever as far as I know. Um, so I know that that works. 00:07:35 If I can get a hopper treatment to do what I was trying to do in frow with the planter and get that result, oh my god. 00:07:41 You talk about a game changer. I Mean, well see you, I mean you went back a couple years ago, well a couple years ago you guys were planting 30 00:07:47 inch um, double crop beans. Yes. And you're running a drill and the drill was outrunning the planter. 00:07:53 Yeah. As far as bushes per acre. And it's because we were getting that coverage of the row and Yeah. 00:07:59 We were saving from of heat. That's whole deer damage. Right. You weren't getting so much deer damage. Exactly. So, but now if you have a program 00:08:06 that you can put on a drill, may, maybe that's the road that we go down. We start to think about the hopper box treatment on, 00:08:13 you know, our double crop bean acres. Because you and I last year ran some double crop beans and we put a hopper box treatment on it. 00:08:21 And dude, I don't know how you felt, but I thought it was a game changer for, for All. Well it was, we were 00:08:26 planting double crops in dry dirt and they're the only ones that came up. That's what we, that didn't have to be replanted. 00:08:31 That's what we're getting at that. I mean, how can you explain that? I mean, it makes no sense. And they were the only ones that had that treatment on it. 00:08:37 Exactly. And they came up fine. So something, something worked and they're all within the same geographic location. 00:08:44 It wasn't like I was in separate counties and this and that, you know what I mean? It just, 00:08:47 Well look at that, look at that one trial that we did at Alexander Planet, um, with a 15 inch planter right there at my house. 00:08:53 Yeah. Embarrassing as hell. Like I know it was my treatment, you know, different sponsors treatments of infer programs. 00:09:01 Yeah. And there was two of 'em that I didn't have to replan mine, which is my grower standard practice, which I use. 00:09:08 And it was, it was a nature's program, but I used it didn't have to replan it and the one where it was no in furrow, no two by two, 00:09:18 no nothing except For the hopper box. They had a hopin box treatment and it came up better than my in furrow treatment. 00:09:24 And it was like perfect. And It came up better. Remember we, because we did the one with starter too. 00:09:28 It came up better with than this, the one with starter and in furrow. Yeah. So you wanna talk about a return on investment, 00:09:35 like that's a monster. I think it's a monster in double crop beans because you're getting it to come up, you're getting it 00:09:41 to shade the row over and, and you're getting in front of that heat and you just get an immediate stand versus, you know, 00:09:47 struggling along planting and all that. I mean, how many times have we planted in wheat beans? You know, we're planting wheat beans behind 00:09:54 or we're planting beans behind wheat. Yeah. And you, it, that ground is like real sour because you get a rain on it and Yeah. 00:10:01 It just seems like the beans are forever coming up and you're like, man, this looks terrible. And this year we didn't have that. 00:10:07 Like it was Yeah, they were up. Well that's 'cause you had heat. We did have heat. A lot of heat. 00:10:12 We had a lot of heat, man in that, you know, that trigger seemed like you planted 'em and looked behind there screening up the rail. 00:10:16 Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. It was crazy. It was crazy. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, so here we are, we're talking about, well, 00:10:23 what we're gonna do this winter to plan for, um, this spring and the different, uh, treatments that we're, 00:10:29 we're gonna try to come up with. 00:10:31.385 --> 00:10:33.645

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