Matt Miles’ Cotton Chronicles: Potassium Shortcuts and Lessons Learned

00:00:00 So something I learned this year, um, that I won't do next year. You know, I, I say this a lot, be careful what you wish for. 00:00:08 And this past spring, you know, we, you know, with, with prices where they are and inputs where they are, you know, we were, 00:00:15 I guess you would say wishing for low input costs. So we did a few things differently than we, than we normally do. 00:00:21 You know, one particular instance I can think of is, you know, we, we use a lot of poultry litter, so, you know, our ground's pretty fertile. 00:00:28 We spent a lot of money on, on fertility to make sure that it is. But, uh, we decided that we'd just use 00:00:35 what fertilizer we had in the soil, you know, plus the litter. And normally what we do is, we'll, we'll band-aid that 00:00:41 with, with potassium. Well, this year we felt like, hey, with the prices, where they are and, and things where they are, 00:00:47 we can save money, you know, by trimming that fat and not band-aiding the potassium, you know, using sodium chloride or, or, uh, potassium sulfate 00:00:56 or whatever choice of potassium you want to use. You know, we're gonna save that money. We're gonna get by what's in the soil 00:01:02 and made a little bit of a mistake. Thankfully, it was on, you know, land that we own. Uh, we didn't do it across the board. 00:01:09 We done it on a few select fields that we own. Most of the time when I'm trying to cut costs on something, I'll try to do it on the land I own, just 00:01:15 because, you know, it don't hurt a share rent landowner. So here we go. We put out the poultry litter, we decide 00:01:21 that's enough potassium for the cotton crop and didn't add anything else. And about, I don't know, July, end of July, uh, 00:01:29 I was flying back in from a meeting and we flew over the farm, you know, looked down at the crop and I thought, I'm in trouble. 00:01:35 The cotton had already started turning purple in the low CC soils. I mean, you could see the exactly 00:01:41 where the soil type changed based on the amount of potassium that was put out. So the heavier soils, you know, 00:01:47 with the higher organic matter, you know, they utilized the potassium that was in the soil, the lighter soils, that which is predominantly, mostly 00:01:55 what we farm, not so much. So I could see that in July. I knew I was in trouble. I did a video previously about that on, uh, you know, 00:02:03 not putting out enough pot ash, you know, the new, the new thing is reducing nitrogen. And we've seen where we can reduce nitrogen in a lot 00:02:09 of different places, uh, especially in some of the corn. You know, Kelly kicked my butt this year on reducing, 00:02:15 on reducing the, well actually he didn't kick my butt, he beat me by a bushel, but he used a lot less fertilized to do that. 00:02:21 So it's not about what you cut or the cost you cut, it's more about what you can make and what you can take to the bank. 00:02:27 There's some areas where you can cut and probably do a good job. And I preach this all the time. 00:02:32 Be careful that you don't cut in the wrong places. And I almost did exactly what I preach not to do. Cut the potassium back. Cotton loves potassium. 00:02:42 It it, you know, normally we will put the litter out, then we'll spoon feed the rest of the potassium through the year. 00:02:48 And we've always got an awesome cotton crop. Still made an awesome cotton crop. But there were certain veins 00:02:54 or places in the field, you know, in the real sandier areas where we did not make a good 00:02:58 Cotton crop. Luckily, you know, the heavier dirt, some of the other fields we didn't do that on, made up the difference. 00:03:04 And we ended up with probably one of the best cotton yields we've ever had. But I did see where my dad always caught it, 00:03:11 cutting your nose off to spite your face. I see where we cut some corners in places that cost us money rather than made us money. 00:03:19 So I guess if there's anything I'll change next year. Um, I said this in a previous vid video is stay the course. If you're doing something and it's working every year 00:03:29 and you're, and you're successful at that specific thing you're doing, man, I would think twice about changing that. 00:03:35 Even if it looks like you're gonna save money by doing it a little bit different. You know, sometimes it will actually come 00:03:41 back and bite you in the butt. There is places you can cut. There's things we're seeing, you know, with extreme ag. 00:03:47 That's a great thing about being in this, in this company is, you know, we're starting to see 00:03:51 where things work, where they don't work. The timing of it is this $5 gonna return me at least five back. 00:03:58 I'm not the guy that's gotta have a four to one return. If I can piggyback something and I can at least get my money back, 00:04:04 I'm gonna try it the second year. If I make any money off of it, I'm definitely trying it the second year, you know, 00:04:09 if we can see a positive ROI, then it becomes grower standard practice. But what I did that I preached to other people not to do 00:04:18 is don't cut corners in places that you know you needed. And potassium, fertilizer and cotton is one of them. 00:04:24 We did cut back. We actually didn't cut back, but we didn't use two forms of, of potassium. We didn't use the litter plus the commercial fertilizer. 00:04:32 We just used the litter and was relying on that. I don't think it all broke down in time. I think the low CECs kind 00:04:39 of filtered out some of that potassium. That's one thing we don't seem to be able to build in low CEC soils is potassium. 00:04:45 And again, it, it was a costly mistake. Luckily it was on my own ground, so it didn't cost anybody but me and me in the long run. 00:04:54 Just be careful what you wish for. 'cause sometimes the grass isn't always greener on the other 00:04:58.725 --> 00:04:58.965