Farming Video | Cutting Nitrogen Pays Off in Kelly Garrett's Corn Trial

28 Nov 253m 4s

Is Your Nitrogen Rate Still Too High? Kelly Garrett’s Trial Says Maybe.

Kelly Garrett's no stranger to trying out new products—and like many of us, he’s been skeptical when biologicals promise big returns. After several runs with no yield gains, Pivot Bio finally showed promise this year. But what changed? Nitrogen.

Instead of sticking with his usual rates, Kelly turned it way down—hovering around the 100-pound mark on a no-till corn-on-corn field. For the first time, Pivot Bio gave him a 7-bushel gain. That’s nearly a 2-to-1 return, even with $4 corn.

Other spots in the field with 140–160 pounds of N showed no yield bump at all, making it clear: the biological didn’t matter when nitrogen was too high.

It’s not about chasing magic products—it’s about dialing in your whole system. And this trial’s got Kelly thinking that maybe—just maybe—he’s been overapplying for years.

Bottom line? It might be time to take a hard look at your N rate. You could be leaving dollars in the dirt.

This video includes paid sponsors of XtremeAg.farm. The views & opinions expressed in this video are those of XtremeAg.farm. and are based solely on th. experiences ofthe XtremeAgteam. The use of brand names and/or any mention or listing of specific products or services herein is solely for educational purposes and does not imply endorsement by XtremeAg.

00:00:00 Hi, this is Kelly Garrett from Extreme Ag. I'm in the office this morning going over some yield results, trial results, things like that, 00:00:07 and, uh, implementing our plan for next year. The trial that I'm looking at today, uh, is pretty interesting 00:00:14 because I've never had a, a positive result before. But, you know, with continued research and tweaking and things like that, uh, 00:00:21 this year we have some interesting data. The trial that I'm talking about is our pivot Bio trial. It was in no-till corn on corn, 00:00:28 and I've tried products like this before. I've tried pivot before. I've tried other biologicals that are in the same space 00:00:34 that are supposed to quote unquote replace nitrogen. Never had a positive result at all. With our continued SAP testing 00:00:42 and rapid soil testing and things like that. It occurred to me that we probably still have the nitrogen too high, if that, uh, if that's the phrase you want to use. 00:00:52 And so we got pretty drastic with the nitrogen this year, and we turned it down to either side of a hundred pounds. 00:00:59 Uh, now I'm not trying to be evasive and not tell you what the actual rate was. We variable radar nitrogen through the form of anhydrous. 00:01:05 It's put on in the fall, typically sometimes in the spring, but we like to fall. And so we knew where we were gonna put this trial, 00:01:12 and we took an extra 40 to 60 pounds out, depending on where you're at in the field. And we show a seven bushel yield game. 00:01:19 The pivot is $15 and 50 cents an acre. And, uh, you know, depending on your cost of nitrogen, um, what, what 40 to 60 pounds cost. 00:01:28 But we, uh, we were on either side of a hundred pounds of applied nitrogen. We had the pivot, and in 00:01:34 that area we showed a seven bushel yield gain. Now with only $4 corn, that's a $28 gross, obviously, versus a 1550 spend, almost two to one. 00:01:43 I've always been an advocate of saying that I like a, uh, I like to have a three to one, um, a gain, 00:01:49 but, you know, that's just not realistic all the time. I, I really think a two to one gain or something like this here really warrants being looked at. 00:01:57 We're trying to, uh, work and see, you know, how, how can we maintain profitability or even in this economic time, 00:02:04 how can we find any profitability? And, you know, you're talking about 12 and a half, $13 an acre. 00:02:09 That's something to pay attention to. On the other side of the farm where we, uh, you know, this field where the trial was, we, um, 00:02:17 we had pivot applied in other areas, you know, where we had a hundred forty, a hundred fifty, a hundred sixty 00:02:22 pounds of nitrogen. There was no yield gain. That to me, shows that the applied nitrogen is probably still too high, 00:02:30 and we can turn it down, we can save some dollars there. Put the pivot or, 00:02:34 or a biological out there to really help, uh, to really help with that nitrogen capture. 00:02:41 You know, this was a Gen three product. Worked with Nick and Alex on this. Um, really excited about the research. 00:02:47 Really excited to work with them again in 26 through extreme ag. And, uh, we're gonna continue trying this. 00:02:53 I, I feel like we might be onto something 00:02:56.355 --> 00:02:58.935