Farming Video | Late-Season Crop Decisions

00:00:00 Economic decisions you make during the season on a late season. My friend Burt Rigg, the concept agritech, 00:00:06 brought this up yesterday evening and I said, you know what? Let's talk about that in the video 00:00:10 that our viewers can benefit from. We're joined by Matt Miles. We're at the Miles Farm Field Day here in McGee, Arkansas. 00:00:15 You made an important distinction. Uh, Matt said, I'm not behind. Uh, we got our crops on time. And you said it's not about, 00:00:22 It's not about the planting date, it's about the gdu or the heat units that has been accumulated. And we all know this year, depending on where you were, 00:00:31 we've had excessive rain, we've had cool temperatures and so we haven't accumulated the heat units where we need to, where we need to be in order for the trop 00:00:40 to be at the appropriate growth stage based on a planting date. And so Matt, you obviously 00:00:45 said no, everything went on time. You're not necessarily behind, but maybe these plants should be another six inches tall. 00:00:51 They'd be at a vegetative stage, you know, seven instead of three or whatever that should be. And you don't even think about that. 00:00:57 But it's important to think about that because if you start treating everything the same, you might be spending money 00:01:01 that isn't gonna give you the right amount of return. That's correct. Anytime that we're fighting weather, especially in a stress type environment, you have to 00:01:12 adequately assess that crop to determine whether or not it's gonna be worth spending more money on. You know, this year commodity prices are down. 00:01:21 There are a lot of people that cut back early season. Yeah. But if the crop looks good 00:01:25 and it looks like it's got a chance, that may mean that you need to spend a little money on stress mitigation. 'cause that's the largest return on 00:01:34 investment you're gonna get. Do You agree? Yeah, I agree with that for sure. 00:01:37 This has been the most confusing year bur and I had this conversation, I had some beans that were eight nodes that was at R three 00:01:44 and Burton said, well that's not possible. And I said, well, lemme go out and FaceTime you at the field. 00:01:48 Of course they weren't all R three. Right. But eight node beans should never even be closed. It shouldn't be R two and a half. Nope. 00:01:53 And so there's been so many weird things happening with the weather. Now I will say this, I'm optimistic. 00:01:58 In 2012 when they had the drought in the Midwest, we had Midwest weather. So yes, we're not getting the gdu, 00:02:05 but we're getting a, uh, slower grain field. I mean, it's 80 degrees today. Normally it'd be 95 sets down here. Yeah, exactly. 00:02:10 So that's the thing. These are behind a little bit because it was a confusing season and the south might hold up better than the Midwest in this 00:02:19 regard because we're gonna run out of time where I'm from in Indiana, cloudy, gray. No, no gdu, no soil temperature. 00:02:26 When you've got crops that are a month behind there, you run out of time faster than you run out of time here. Correct. 00:02:32 Kelly even said it was too cool to spray this week at his farm. An hour too. Cool. 00:02:36 Talking about the decisions, what decision do you make? So that's when you and your, uh, consultant agronomist need to go out 00:02:44 and spend some time in that field and take a look. There's been copious amounts of research that tell you that if this crop is at this stage, it's gonna be x number 00:02:53 of days before it's gonna mature. Those are generally based off of heat units. Yep. But in weird weather sometimes you 00:03:02 can't go off the heat units. You've got to go with what's going on there. So you have to take a look 00:03:07 and see, is it possible for me to boost this crop, help it get through this stress? Yep. Spend a extra few dollars so 00:03:16 that I can have it pay dividends on the back end. Or is there a smart time to just cut bait and say, this is never gonna be, what is your thing? 00:03:23 Three bale cotton. Yeah. Uh, so say this is never gonna make three bale cotton. It's going to be one in 0.8 bale cotton. 00:03:30 Uh, the best thing I can do now is stop spending. When do you make that decision? Well, you know, with us having irrigation, that, 00:03:34 that takes a lot of that risk out. You take a dry land producer. That's the cool thing about foer fertilizer is like bird 00:03:41 said, you don't have to front load everything. And then when you see you've got a crop, okay, now I can spend the money on the crop 00:03:47 because things have straightened out and I've got yield potential. You know, we very seldom quit a crop, you know, 00:03:53 in the middle of the year because of that reason. But it's, we, we've got irrigation. So that makes a whole lot of difference. 00:03:58 But it really, it really boils down to you being more in touch with what's actually going on in your field 00:04:04 and consulting with the right people so that you can make that informed decision. Because you can throw good money after. Bad, real quick. 00:04:12 Yeah. So tell me the things you're looking at. Obviously growth stage, if you're in the south, you get a bailout because you 00:04:16 generally have such a longer season. If it's behind on growth stage, assuming that it doesn't get crazy is not Armageddon, you'll make that up. 00:04:25 Right. I mean, for us, you don't think much about hurricanes here because we're 500 miles from the beach or whatever, 00:04:31 or five hours from the beach. Yeah. But we get all of the tropical. Yes. So, uh, especially a crop like cotton, you know, 00:04:38 if it's late, that pushes you into that harvest window where those hurricanes can it negatively impact you. Okay. What about then on, when you say, uh, 00:04:48 you said stress mitigation, you talked about does late season create more of a fungus? Do I have more disease pressure? 00:04:54 So when you, when you have a, we Across a different state, right? When, when you had the weather conditions we've had this 00:04:59 year where it's been exceedingly wet Yep. In a lot of areas. And then if it turns off hot and dry, that is the perfect catalyst for disease 00:05:09 to start springing up. So not only do you have to be in tune with, you know, the growth stages and whatnot, you've gotta scout that crop 00:05:17 to make an informed decision. Biggest Mistake you've made on a late season, was it overspending or underspending? 00:05:22 Was it because you thought, I'm just gonna keep pouring it to it and, or was it I 00:05:26 don't think this crop's gonna make it. Which one? Some years it'll be, I mean, 50, 50 some years you, you pour the money on there and you, 00:05:33 and you don't get a return and the next year you don't. And you should have had, I mean it's, it's, the balls are in the air all the time. Person 00:05:39 Turned into this video to hear an actual answer and he says 50 50. That's like saying, uh, 00:05:43 doing the lawyer tells you it depends. I mean, come on. But that's farming. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So what do you look at, what do you look at then 00:05:49 to make sure you don't have that problem and you, you Forecast temperatures, rain, you know, I mean, you look, you look, you can get a 15 day forecast. 00:05:56 It's not ever right. Yeah. But it's closer than me trying to guess it myself. And So what, what about the analysis of the plant? 00:06:02 The plant, uh, you know, understanding the vegetative stage that it's at, or reproductive stage it's at 00:06:06 because it's probably behind, but also, do I need to look at what's going on in that? Do I need is, is tissue sampling matter more? Uh, 00:06:11 Yes, because you have to know your nutrient load. Okay. Especially if you cut back on the front end. Okay. Because if you're trying to put some money into the crop 00:06:19 to bring it along to give you a higher return, that's never gonna happen if you don't keep up with the nutrient demand. 00:06:24 When do you know when to cut bait? When I know when to cut. When do you know when to cut bait? 00:06:28 Well, when you, I mean, just economics. So you're looking at the price, you're looking at the yield expectancy and the time, 00:06:33 what time you've got left to, you know, to fill the crop By a month before harvest. Big 00:06:36 thing by a month before harvest, you know what the yield looks like. Yeah, pretty much. And the, 00:06:39 the big thing on the lake crop here in the south is insects. Yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna spray two 00:06:44 or three times more than you would have if you'd had it in early. 'cause those bugs don't go on what time your crop is. 00:06:50 They go on what they can eat. Your last Piece of advice, Burt Reagan. My last piece of advice is every year, 00:06:58 but especially a year, like this year, a late year, a late year, be on top of your stress mitigation. That is the easiest way for you 00:07:06 to have a greater return on investment. And they're the stress mitigation products that are available to the farmers nowadays, 00:07:13 generally are not that expensive. Stress mitigation on a late season matters more than ever. So you know what, we talked 00:07:20 about this in a lot of different videos. From Extreme Ag. You can go and check this out. It's basically a video library. 00:07:24 Hundreds and hundreds of videos. Guys like Matt have shot on their farm And Lane, also the Cutting the Curve podcast, as well as our webinars. 00:07:30 It's all extreme Ag Farm. We are here to help you farm better. I'm joined by Burt Riggin 00:07:33 with Concept Agritech and Matt Miles. The Miles Farm Field Day. If you have not been to an extreme Ag Field Day 00:07:38 is an experience like another. You really need to check this out. Let's face it. All these companies are here to help you. 00:07:43 We're here to help you get great information, to help you farm better. Go to Extreme Ag Farm and sign up for the field days. 00:07:47 If you watch this in time, our last field day of the year is August 21st. 00:07:51.095 --> 00:07:52.845