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Three common mistakes most farmers make when it comes to interpreting results of their soil test. Talking to Jason DeCaeywer here with Demco, and the Demco Built to
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Move series, agronomy simplified to help move your farm forward. All right. You and I have gone through this.
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We've looked at our soil test, and you said I'm probably stressing about things that I shouldn't, and I'm probably doing some other things based on my soil
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test. But obviously, I take those tests for a reason, Jason. I want to make some adjustments. And you said, "Yeah, but you're probably getting a
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soil test and overreacting." Overreacting. Exactly. It might be the first time you take a soil test, and you might have seen a TV show about where they talk about a certain nutrient.
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All of a sudden, you're gravitating towards that nutrient like, "Oh my goodness, look at how dramatically low I am. This is not a good day."
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Yeah. And the overreaction seems like it's emotional, and these economics that we're dealing with right now in agriculture, it's like, "I spent all this money and
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it didn't move the needle," or, "I need to spend more money. I don't have it." You can see an emotional sort of basket case because of the
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results of a soil test. So overreaction probably is an inhibiting factor. 100%. Yeah. You gravitate towards one thing without seeing the whole picture.
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And then that brings me to the other mistake. It's another over, from overreaction to... Overapply. And so, okay, if this is the one I'm focused on, I'm going to just
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load up on phosphorus, or I'm going to load up on potassium. Pick the nutrient.
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Yeah. But you tend to gravitate towards one and overdo it. And we hear it all the time. "That field's low in," and whatever it is.
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"Low in potassium." And that means I'm just going to go out there and I'm going to fling it out there, and then I might not see any results, and all of a sudden
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I'm... Overly optimistic. Yeah. I thought I was going to put this on, it was going to change everything. But what we guess probably should remember, that field's been in crops for more
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than a couple of days. A lot longer than I've been alive. So by overapplying and overreacting, I get over-optimistic, and
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that's going to lead me to probably then a lot of, shall I say, disappointment. Exactly. So again, if you only focused on that one nutrient, because that's been in
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your overreaction, you're overapplying, overly optimistic, "Hey, I fixed my phosphorus. I'm going to have 300 bushel corn out here now." And when that doesn't happen,
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you're scratching your head, and it's, again, you can't just focus on one. There's balance, right? There's how many nutrients needed to make a kernel of
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corn. You cannot just focus on one. So sure, you might have an issue you might throw a few more dollars at, but don't blow the budget on one nutrient when you have a myriad of nutrients that need that.
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Your big thing has always been you preach balance. And that means from micros to macros and all the things that I can do. So if I don't want to overreact, overapply, and get over-optimistic, you
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would start with... A balanced approach of a multitude of nutrients at that point.
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Micros especially. Micros are very supportive of macros, especially when they're in low levels.
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Usually if I'm doing the overreaction, et cetera, I'm probably not keeping eye on the stuff that maybe is the micro stuff.
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100%. Yeah. Because it's easier to go and buy what they sell you, and that's usually the big three.
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What's readily available, NPK. Exactly. So those are the common mistakes you see in all the farmers you deal with. And the simple approach is pull back a little bit, don't overreact,
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focus on balance. And again, do some more testing. What is really your limiting factor? Got it. Limiting factor. His name's Jason DeCaeywer.
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We're talking about how you can simplify the agronomy in your farming operation to move your farm forward.
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It's the Demco Built to Move series right here in conjunction with XtremeAg. Thanks for being here.
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