Farming Video | Tackling Gray Leaf Spot and Boosting Yield with Kevin Matthews

Doing a little fungicide work here today and we got a lot of gray leaf spot coming on in the crops. And this kinda give you overview of what we're using here on the farm. This is just general grower standard, as you would call it. Nothing, nothing special. It's just what we do to protect this yield that we have here. So what we've got is a very healthy crop, but we've had a lot of rain and we do have gray leaf spot here where the tassels has come out, our agronomists and then uh, the guys out in the field checking Kent and Tim, they're seeing gray leaf spot coming up everywhere. So we're trying to get a handle on it. It's, it's not bad, it's down in lower canopy, but with this humidity that we're having and we're blessed with excellent crop this year at this stage of the game. So we're running Velma at 10 ounces per acre. Normally we would run eight, but with the disease pressure as heavy as it is this year, we talked with a rep at BASF and we, we felt like, and I trust him, he is not trying to sell more product, but we felt like at 10 ounces would be the better rate with environmental conditions. With facing, we planted this at 24,000. We've got about a 23,000 final stand. But the interesting part is we got 35 to 40,000 years out there and uh, we did not put fertility out there for that kind of yield because you just don't normally see that in our area, especially on these fields right here. I got with the guys at Nature's, I talked with the guys at Concept Agritech and then my spray tech guys and I tried to put a plan together that was economical that would address helping hold those second ears. And these are, these are good ears. They're not dubbings or anything of that nature. We're far enough along Arthur now we know what we got. We knew we'd be limited, uh, on some nitrogen so we needed to put some more of that out. So we went with a nutrient product, maximum impact at a gallon of acre. And then I went with a nature's product, a triple option at one gallon acre. 'cause I needed some phosphorus to help fill them kernels out a little more. 'cause we've got so many years out here that we normally just, we didn't budget for it, quite frankly. Great problem. Never had it before. Um, I just, I, my goal is to keep it. Speaking of never had it. That's one reason I went to the team of people with extreme ag that we worked with to try to get the best pointers on keeping this large a percentage of double ears on the stall. So we got down our finish line with, uh, nature's is something we've used for years. I really love that product. We run a quart to the acre of that on here. And then boron max, which is a spray tech product if you need a boon product foliar, uh, it's just proven it, it just works good where it mixes well with a full tech adjuvant. Um, do not try mixing it without that adjuvant it, it won't be a fun situation. So we got the boron max in here and got the full tech. And then all y'all that follow me, you know that I've got sweet success in here. I'm going to have that molasses, that black strap molasses. I'm going to have it in here. I think we're just running about four to six ounces of it. Kind of helps with drift control but well that full tech. And then that we really are pushing this product down into the canopy really, really well. And the small, you know, the lighter population helps on that as well. We're running a ground rig. Uh, we're running a a 25 model Haie here, STS 12 and it's got John Deere Zackly system on it. So with the zackly we chose the high Pro 3D fungicide nozzle and this does a phenomenal job. I just can't say enough about the experience I've had using their products. They work well and then getting work with Nick and large, the best thing, so the beauty about having the John Deere Z apply on here is I set my pressure at 50 PSI we're doing 15 gallons acre. When I talked with Nick a couple years back, he said, you know, for that particular nozzle to get the heaviest droplets, the best penetration, the least amount of drift, really get your product in there. He said, if you could keep it at 50 PSI, well at that time I didn't have exact comply. And now that I've got it, I'm keeping 50 pounds all the time on my, on my tips. Uh, they're pulsating, I'm running a and B together 'cause I'm running a larger volume of water through here and better ground speed and you can getting bigger fields. So that's a little bit about what we're doing. Now let's say you, you know, you got the same environmental conditions we do and you need to be out there spraying, but you can't afford a ground rig like this or it's not available when you're trying to use a drone. Or maybe you got some helicopters in there here, an airplane and they're using a low volume and you can't be putting all these gallons of stuff out here. Plus, you know, to get enough carrier water to make it play well together. I would highly look into a lot of the full tech products. The cube you can get by at four ounces of acres, a recommended rate. And I'll tell you, you're going to be skeptical just like I was at these real low rates that the spray tech products use on their foliar fertility. But I called her bluff foam, some of 'em and tried bubbling up in some areas and um, tell you what, um, where I got it really heavy, maybe, you know, doubled up plus a little bit, um, I got a little bit of burn damage there. So, um, it's four ounces but it's so heavily concentrated that four ounces equivalent to a gallon. If you're doing aerial work and you're trying to protect this corn crop this year, I highly recommend, you know, looking into those products. I like all of 'em real well. We had um, we had these nature's products on hand. I've been using 'em for years. They're proven. I trust them. I think you'll be happy with it, um, if you use any of 'em. But if you caught on the one thing outta all I've talked about is I never see it go with this one company. They got everything you need. So far in my career farming, the one thing I have learned that when I can take companies like concept Agritech, spray Tech, nature's Mons, all of 'em has got a great product or several great products out there. And for me to sit here and tell you that that's all a one size fits all and that's the only company you need to deal with, I ain't going to do it 'cause I hadn't found that company yet either. But um, anyhow, I hope this helps you a little bit. If you've not been out in your fields, please get out there, check 'em. If you have any questions about anything I've discussed here spraying this fungicide today, um, please send us an email or if you got my number, call me. I'll help you any way I can. We got a lot of resources 90% of the time I don't know the answer, but I'm know who to call to get the answer. But y'all stay safe and have fun and who knows, maybe the commodity prices will come up 00:07:44.705 --> 00:07:46.525