Farming Video | Cotton Challenge at Miles Farms

00:00 So guys, um, we're here today at the second annual field day here at at our Farm Miles Farms. 00:00:05 And another interesting subject this year, uh, we've got, uh, challenge plots again. 00:00:10 Uh, we had those last year in corn. Now we're gonna have 'em in cotton. So each one of us have different things that we're gonna do. 00:00:17 Last year I had the corn expert come out and he ended up kicking my butt along with Stephanie and, and, and their team. 00:00:25 But this year we're doing cotton. So Kelly never even seen any cotton until he met me. Kevin's in the cotton area, but he don't grow any. 00:00:33 So if I lose this one, it's gonna be ugly. What do you think, Stephanie? I Think it's gonna be a good challenge. 00:00:39 And what we're doing here is we've invited these two guys to come down to your farm. 00:00:43 We gave them a $50 budget for the season and looking at foliar applications up to four passes across the field for your cotton. 00:00:50 So that's kind of, we set it up, everyone has the same dollar to spend and we got to pick and choose those different nutrients. 00:00:55 So we'll start with Kelly, who knows nothing about cotton. What did you do or how'd you make those decisions? 00:01:01 Mike Evans and I sat down. We tried to study, we tried to research, you know, we, uh, we took some pointers. 00:01:07 Chad helped me a little bit, told me what to do. You know, he lost that bet with me on cotton Yield last year. Right? 00:01:11 You remember that? But I had to go with where I could, I couldn't ask you, obviously, just like when we raise corn, soybeans, wheat, we wanna have a balanced approach. 00:01:18 We tried to balance out that approach. We're trying to spoon feeded that crop throughout the year. I mean, let's face it, at the beginning I thought these were 00:01:24 funny looking soybeans, so we're gonna have to see what happens. Uh, it, it'll be exciting. 00:01:29 I really believe that we're getting with cotton, you know, that like Matt and Chad have always talked about, 00:01:33 it's a challenging crop, especially when you're trying to establish a stand. Um, what can I learn here to take the other crops at home? 00:01:39 That's what's exciting for me. It'd be really exciting to somehow beat Matt. But let's face it, that would be luck, 00:01:43 not skill if we beat Matt. But, uh, yeah, I'm really excited about this because I'm always wanting to learn something new. 00:01:49 So, Kevin, what do you take aways or how did you approach your program? Well, the cotton crop's unique. 00:01:55 I mean, everything that, that we grow, we're trying to make it grow and produce cotton. You try to make it grow, then you 00:02:01 try to stop it so it don't grow. I mean it's, it's a like a vicious cycle. And I've never had any experience like that. 00:02:07 And then, you know, growing up, all I've ever heard was, you know, you plant the cotton so it can die. 00:02:12 You know, it's wanting to die as soon as you plant it. So you're trying to keep it alive. We was more in tobacco right there. Tobacco was king. 00:02:18 So the cotton was something that we just, you know, we stayed away from growing up. So it is gonna be fun to get back 00:02:25 and kinda see how it works out. You know, my advisor at Agri Liquids, I don't know very little about the crops, 00:02:31 so I relied on him to help me with that. And that also helps show the relationship that, you know, agri liquids has got with a grower 00:02:39 that may not know much about a crop he's wanting to grow. He's got that accessibility to that person, that expertise. 00:02:45 This is gonna show whether he is really an expertise at it or not. For sure. So if we beat Matt, it's gonna be good. 00:02:51 But, um, boy, I bet you lender wouldn't like it too. Good. I don't know. That could be bad, wouldn't it? 00:02:54 Well, well, last year I told Kelly, I said, I hope you beat me. 'cause I learned something and I did. 00:02:58 I, I learned that I didn't need as much nitrogen as I thought I did. And you know, we were all relatively 00:03:03 close, but it was kind of cool. It, it, it sucks to lose, but it's kind of cool if you learn 00:03:07 something, why, you know why you're losing. This is about ROI too. This ain't 00:03:10 about pounds or, or yield, you know? Yeah, it is about making money. The fortunate thing is my agri expert is from the south. 00:03:17 He is familiar with cotton. Yeah. She's from Michigan. She's Kind of waited on a Kevin, 00:03:21 She's from Michigan, he's from Iowa. I expect me to come in first. You to come in second and them come in third. 00:03:27 Other than the fact y'all are all really smart. Stephanie's really smart when it comes to nutrients. So I'll probably lose again 00:03:33 with cotton being a unique plant. You know, it's different from almost anything else. One thing we have to do is multiple trips for insects. 00:03:39 So we have plant bugs, so we're gonna be going over that crop five or six times during the year at least. Some of that will be a airplane, some will be 00:03:45 with a ground rig, depends on how dry the ground is. So we're able to really take advantage of spoon feeding cotton. 00:03:51 We've been doing this for years. Every few years we kind of add something to there. We've always used boron, you know, we've always used, uh, 00:03:59 nitrogen, you know, a 23% nitrogen at the end to finish out the bowls. Now we started adding micro packs, you know, 00:04:05 and calcium, when we started taking tissue samples. I cannot, I've never had a tissue sample come back of a cotton field at any stage that wasn't low on calcium. 00:04:15 You know, does that matter in yield? I don't know. 'cause I've never seen one that was sufficient in calcium. So I've, my goal's always been to try 00:04:22 to get the calcium levels to sufficient. Is that gonna pack on more yield? That's something we're gonna have to find out. 00:04:27 Well I think that's the goal of all of this is, you know, essentially three agronomists making 00:04:31 three different recommendations. If we all get to the same yield, then we won. 'cause we know that everybody can, you know, pick 00:04:36 and choose what they think is important and get to that same same end point. Yep. The problem I had last year with trying to cut back some 00:04:43 of my fertility was my potassium. I cut back some potassium that bit me, you know, I lost, I lost yield and I lost money in that. 00:04:50 So, you know, we made sure in all of our programs, I think everybody really, you know, everybody's program has, you know, capitalized in it. 00:04:57 So that's gonna make a, I think that's, that's the most important nutrient I think we've got in there. If you had to just pick one. 00:05:04 So being the rookie that I am and looking at the board and the three different fertility plans we have, some have manganese, some have more nitrogen, 00:05:12 some have less nitrogen. What's the different perspective that each of the people have here that helped us do this and, 00:05:17 and what are we trying to accomplish? Well, it starts out with a soil test. So, you know, we sent mat soil test to everybody 00:05:23 and you look at it and everybody picks or chooses a different nutrient that they wanna focus on. And we were limited on dollars. 00:05:29 So I bet if we had an unlimited budget, we probably would've all included everything. But I think it just came down to that, you know, 00:05:36 local expertise or that agronomic expertise that you did by research to figure out, hey, 00:05:40 I think manganese is gonna give me the best return, or I think calcium's gonna gimme the best return. So it just shows that everybody has different opinions 00:05:47 and you can look at the same soil, have the same crop, but how you spend those dollars is gonna be different. So then that, but to me, now that you've answered 00:05:55 that question, this is even a more real world approach because we obviously, in the real world, we do have budgets. And so each agronomist has picked out 00:06:02 what they think are the more important elements or nutrients to put in because of the budget that we have. And when we're on our farms, we all have budgets, right? 00:06:11 Yeah. It's real world. That's kind of why we designed this. And you know, it goes back to again, you know, 00:06:15 if you ask one agronomist, they'll give you one recommendation. You ask somebody else, they'll give 00:06:19 you a different recommendation. And so that's why it's important to, you know, do testing on your own farms so you know which ones 00:06:24 of those nutrients are gonna respond the best. So Guys, you're gonna hear a lot of trash talking through this year with, with these applications we made, uh, 00:06:30 at the end of the year, there's gonna be one winner. 00:06:32.505 --> 00:06:33.845