Why I am moving away from fungicides this season
28 Jun 243m 9s

Kelly is shifting strategies this season and moving away from fungicides and into more micronutrients and stress mitigation practices.

00:00 Hi, this is Kelly Garrett from Extreme Ag. We've just been discussing today how our perspectives have changed since we started extreme 00:06 Ag March 1st, 2020. One of the big changes on our operation is that last year in 23 we didn't use fungicide, 00:13 and in 24 we don't plan to use fungicide. The reason is, is that we feel if we can use that portion of the budget on different products such as micronutrients 00:22 to nutritionally balance the corn. That's the reason that SAP sampling is so important to us. The SAP sampling provides a metric to know 00:30 how many micronutrients we need to apply to assimilate the nitrogen. Please remember that the plant takes micronutrients 00:36 to produces amino acids to turn the nitrogen in. The protein. In the soil that we have here we are over-applying nitrogen relative 00:43 to the amount of micronutrients. So we've started to apply much larger amounts of micronutrients to assimilate the nitrogen, 00:49 and we've seen very big results and a very nice ROI In doing so. Fungicide protects yield, it prevents disease, 00:56 so it's a good product in its place, but if I can nutritionally balance the plant, I maybe don't need all of that prevention 01:02 because the plant is going to protect itself. A nutritionally balanced plant will reach its potential. Applying those micronutrients, spending those dollars in 01:10 that fashion makes shield, whereas fungicide only protects it. Another portion of my budget I want 01:16 to have on stress mitigation products because just like this spring, it can be cold and wet. We're forecast in August to be hot and dry. 01:23 Stress comes in many fashions, so I always want to protect my plants against stress, corn, beans, wheat, all of them. 01:29 And when I go to my R stages, I used to call it my fungicide passport. I'm not gonna call it my fungicide pass anymore 01:34 because when we get to R one, R three, R five, those are reproductive passes. We keep pushing more and more fertility into those 01:41 reproductive phases because we keep seeing a bigger and bigger ROI from it. But there's still stress at that time. 01:46 Again, in August, we're forecast to have 105, 108 degree temperatures. It's forecast to be dry. 01:51 It's hard to believe as wet as it is right now, but Terramar will be a big part of my package at that time to help protect against stress. 01:58 My experience with Terramar really goes back to 2021. Before it was even a product in 2021, we had the original trial with accomplished Max. 02:06 I really thought this is gonna be snake oil. I hadn't heard of a stress mitigation product yet, but Brian Cornelius and I went, went with Will. 02:13 We walked out there in June of 21. It was hot dry, the wind was blowing, the corn was rolled up. 02:18 We got out to the applied area of the accomplished max. I didn't expect to see anything, especially in 14 or 15 inch tall corn, 02:24 but the applied area with accomplished max was unrolled and looked relaxed. Later in the season, we saw a 10 02:30 and 20 bushel yield gain from the two trial areas of accomplished max. And I've been a believer ever since. 02:35 When Terramar came out a couple years ago, I jumped at the chance to try it. We had Iowa State Andersson both involved with extreme AG on 02:42 that trial, and we saw a huge ROI Terramar and accomplished Max, our grower standard practices on my farm because they help reduce stress. 02:49 And even if I nutritionally balance the plant, the plant still has stress from the weather, cold, wet, hot, dry, all of it. 02:56 All of that can be stress and I need to protect it, and I need to make room in my budget for stress mitigation products.

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