BACKGROUND AND A LITTLE RANT

When you say the word “fertilizer” people who aren’t familiar with agriculture often think it means something dangerous or unnatural.  For that reason, I like to refer to fertilizer as what it really is: plant food.  On my farm, my long-term goal is to leave the land in better condition for the next generation than it was when I started farming.  This should be easy on the Blank Slate because the land was in terrible condition to begin with (erosion, low fertility, low organic matter, I’d better stop the list before I get too depressed).

One of the big things I’m trying to learn this year is the correlation between plant population (how many seeds per acre I plant) and plant fertility needs.  When I talk to other farmers about how much fertilizer to apply to their fields it all comes back to what kind of yield level they anticipate being at.  If you’re raising 200 bushel corn, the USDA estimates your crop will remove from the soil 180 pounds of nitrogen, 76 pounds of Phosphorus, and 60 pounds of Potassium, along with smaller amounts of all the other essential nutrients.  Those numbers are just for the nutrients that leave the field when you haul away the grain.  The crop actually needs to take in even more nutrients to grow a healthy root system and stalk that will stand until harvest and support and develop the ears of corn.

In my case, I applied fertility for a 170 bushel yield goal last year and raised only 150 bushels of corn (thanks to being blessed with two shots of hail in July).  Farmers never really have any idea of what yield will be other than guessing by previous history of that field and the knowledge of what management practices they intend to apply this year.  In year three of the Blank Slate project, I’m planning for 180 bushels per acre and will feed the crop accordingly.

THE EXPERIMENT – Please try this at home

1. I’m trying a couple different plant populations trying to learn what the optimum plant density per acre is for maximum yield on the Blank Slate.

2. With those plant populations I’m also trying to learn how to feed the crop just right.  If you don’t add more plant food when you add more plants, you end up with spindly little stalks that tend to fall over in the wind when there’s a great big ear of corn hanging 5 feet off the ground on each stalk.

3. I’m trying higher rates of nitrogen fertilizer on some of the plots to better evaluate my other nutrient applications.  I’ve experimented with higher rates of phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients in the past.  High rates of those nutrients didn’t always help me much because I ran out of something else first.

I’m really excited about the potential of this year’s crop.  I’m also working on getting my kids a little more involved this summer which should be interesting and fun.  Stay tuned.

1. Soil test levels of fertility are up.  How can that be with the low-rate Liquid program I’m using?

2. Crop health throughout the season (even through the hail) was very good – that wasn’t the case on this piece of ground for a long time.

3. I couldn’t see over the top of my corn in July (before the hail) – where in year 1 my corn got 5 to 6 feet tall, last year it was about 9 feet tall even on the hillsides.

This year, we got the field planted May 9th.  We’re using Stine 9207 as the lead hybrid with Stine 9206 as our refuge corn.  More details and pictures to follow.

Seeing some differences between fertilizer rates on the Blank Slate. You can see taller corn in one treatment in this picture. We’ll see if it shows up in yield AND justifies the extra expense.

Corn is now thigh high in this field. Our tallest corn on another field is 6 feet tall.

I got a chance to do a little traveling to some exotic destinations since my last blog post: St. Louis and Indianapolis. I learned a lot and saw some interesting things. One thing I hadn’t done before is travel to the welding shop where our tile plow was built. Here’s a picture of a couple plows waiting to be painted. Sorry for the picture, Denny, where you’re “in action” explaining how the whole process works.

Here’s a better picture with the finished product. The day we were at the shop in Indiana, a load of tile plows shipped out headed for a number of farms in South Dakota. Pretty cool!

Today was spray day on the Blank Slate. Actually yesterday kind of was as well. My neighbor, Jim, is probably wondering what all the commotion is. Here’s the scoop.

Yesterday we sidedressed some additional nitrogen on the field. We put another 50 pounds of N on in the form of some High NRG-N. We used drag hoses and surface applied it in between the rows. We caught a real light shot of rain, 0.2 inches, which should be about perfect.

Today, the field dried up nicely with a light breeze and some sunshine. We are running with 1.5 ounces of Laudis + 22 ounces of Roundup PowerMax for broadleaf control. We’re also adding in 2.5 ounces of Stratego YLD fungicide for disease control and maximum plant health going into some critical growth stages. The Stratego YLD showed up very well in on farm trials last year providing a good ROI and a positive yield boost. My corn this morning was at the V4 to V5 stage, which should be perfect timing.

There were a couple little areas where the soil conditions weren’t ideal for planting when we did. However, I thought they were awfully close. Turns out I was a little too biased. Those areas were too muddy, and the result was a nice crust that the corn had a tough time pushing through. I haven’t walked the field myself this week, so I haven’t done a stand count. When my long-time co-worker, Andy, was sidedressing the field yesterday he estimated the stand in those couple of acres to be a half of a stand. It’s getting late to try to replant those areas, and I really don’t want to rip up good crop alongside as I’m trying to do it so we’ll just ride it out this year and see what we get.

Some people think a field like this is ugly. Can you believe that? I love seeing last year’s stalks in my field. It immediately gets me thinking about my responsibility to my soil and to leave my field in better shape than when I got it. It makes me think about how I’m feeding my crop and the importance of how I manage crop residues in my field. The nutrients that those stalks hold and the value they have in stopping soil erosion are not to be overlooked. I love farming, and I love doing my best every day to do it the right way.

Speaking of doing things right, we barely got the crop in. We got rained out leaving the field. As a result, we did not get the nitrogen fertilizer and pre-emerge herbicide on. We caught a break in the weather and were blessed with an almost perfectly still day to get those things applied a week after we planted. The crop was still 1/2 to 3/4 inch below the soil surface and things worked out very well. I may go into greater detail about that application on a future post.

COMPLAINER ALERT!!! One challenge that we’re facing on this field is the fact that we have terraces and some crazy terrain that we’re trying to do strip tillage in. First of all, you have to drive just perfect (maybe even beyond perfect) to do the strips just right. It’s nearly impossible to have your strip tillage implement follow the terrain and stay exactly where you want. Then when you’re trying to plant, there’s residue right where you don’t want it to be. I’m not trying to be a complainer here. I’m merely trying to explain the difficulty there is in doing the job “just right” throughout the entire field. One problem you can see in this picture. Can you identify it?

The picture looks a little different than my recollection of how things looked yesterday, but one thing is 100% accurate. The seed depth and placement is not perfect. Notice how a couple plants appear to have an extra leaf. That means they emerged from the soil perhaps a day or maybe even more ahead of the smaller plants. When I dug up these plants I noticed the planting depth varying from 1 inch (on only a few plants) to 2.5 inches (again, on only a few plants). Most of the planting depths throughout the field were in the 1.5 inch to 2.0 inch range, which is ideal. However, in a cooler spring like this one has been up to this point a half inch can make a big difference in emergence. When plants emerge evenly, they compete equally for water and nutrients. When there’s a big bully on the block, in this case a corn plant that’s 1 or 2 leaf stages ahead of its neighbor, the big bully gets a majority of the nourishment. The smaller plants never amount to anything and become like weeds in your field. One thing for sure we need to change for next year is our residue managers on the front of our planter. They simply are not effective at pushing residue sufficiently out of the way for us to maximize our potential in a minimum tillage situation.

Instead of focusing on what isn’t perfect, I’d prefer to find something to be positive about. It’s wetter now than when we planted, so I feel fortunate that we pushed hard to get into the field when we did. Otherwise, it would still be unplanted and the decisions would get that much tougher.

Overall, I’m excited about the potential of this crop and look forward to making as many correct decisions as possible to help preserve that potential throughout this growing season.

How’s your crop coming? I hope you’re getting things in the ground and having some fun watching it grow!

I was so excited to blog about planting the Blank Slate . . . but then this happened and that and so on. Here I am a few days later, but the news is still the same. The corn is in the ground and growing.

Here are a few of the details and observations from Thursday, May 19th as we were planting the Blank Slate field.

Drainage – I’ll have more updates on drainage (likely over the next 18 months) as we get approval for installing drainage tile on the Blank Slate. 80 to 90 percent of the field was ready to plant a month ago, but there are a couple areas where years of neglect have led to drainage problems. The west valley of this field is actually the beginning of a “blue line” on the FEMA map, which designates an unnamed tributary. Erosion off the hillsides of the field have left some topsoil in places that actually are holding back the water drainage for a few days after rain. Tile will help greatly here. On the southeast end of the field, it’s kind of the same story. These areas have delayed planting the last two years for us compared to fields where drainage tile has been installed.

Soil Temperature – I get a lot of questions about soil temperature. Sometimes it feels like a knock against us farmers in the Upper Midwest. “Our soils are warmer than your soils.” The soil on Thursday was fantastic. It was 65 degrees where drainage was good. It was 55 degrees where the soil was still a little wet. Amazing what a difference the proper amount of air in the soil has on the entire environment.

Insecticide – We found insects in the field that would certainly attack the seed and young corn seedlings. There were wireworms and even one grub along the trees. We put dry Force insecticide on with the planter, but I screwed up on the rate. When we changed which hybrid we were going to be planting, we switched from a VT3 trait (Roundup Resistant plus protection from corn rootworm and corn borer) to an Agrisure trait with no rootworm protection. Without the corn rootworm trait, especially in a corn following corn rotation, I would have liked to have had a full rate of insecticide applied with the planter. You see, there’s no rescue treatment for corn rootworms. They do all their damage underneath the soil surface so your one chance to get them is with a planting time application of insecticide. We’ll add a full rate of generic Capture in with the Harness and liquid Nitrogen which have yet to be applied to the field. Technically, I may still be okay doing it this way, but I won’t plan on doing this ever again.

Refuge corn – I did plant a refuge corn (Roundup Resistant but no trait for insect protection). For the non-farmers, we’re required to plant 20% of our acres to corn hybrids that do not contain a trait protecting the plant from insects. By planting a refuge, the scientific community hopes to delay the inevitable growth of bugs that are resistant to the traits. On our farm, we plant a little more than the 20% refuge and use a full rate of planting time insecticide on those acres (which is completely legal – I know, it seems strange to me too).

Hybrid – I am planting Stine 9207. It’s an early 90 day hybrid with a ton of yield punch. In fact, it yielded over 250 Bushels per acre in our test plot last year. Let’s hope it can do that again!

Seed Treatment – Another important cog in my plan is QuickRoots seed treatment. We’ve been using QuickRoots on everything (corn, beans, wheat) on our farm for a number of years now. We’ve seen 6 to 8 bushels better corn pretty consistently, so it’s an absolute no-brainer for us.

Fertilizer – The key ingredient to high yields is the plant food we use. Since my field has very little fertility in the soil, I have to apply almost all of what I’ll need to produce corn kernels and support my plants all the way until harvest. Once again, I’m putting Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizer products to the test with an in-furrow application. I’ll be using 5 gallons of Pro Germinator and 5 gallons of Sure-K along with a gallon of Micro 500. We also have experiments with a 50% higher rate than that in a strip or two. I’m also using another product that contains a little sulfur right in the furrow as well on one strip in the field. I question the crop safety of sulfur in-furrow, but the ACLF folks haven’t steered me wrong yet so I’m giving it a shot. As for the nitrogen and the majority of my sulfur, we need to get that sprayed very soon before the corn emerges from the soil.

Responsible Nutrient Management – So far, I’m really glad I haven’t put the nitrogen on yet. With all the rain we’ve had, I’m certain I would have lost a percentage of it to leaching. Many farmers who did get the nitrogen on last fall or early this spring are pretty concerned that they might run short of nitrogen late in the season when the corn plants really need it. By putting my P, K, and micros in the furrow, I can’t think of a more responsible way to protect those nutrients from loss. Also, by banding the fertilizer like this and using highly available fertility products, I am using far fewer pounds of actual nutrients and still getting great yields.

There is sure a lot to share and discuss this growing season. I can’t wait to see this crop come up and find out what I get to learn this year.

The title probably says it all. The Blank Slate is still not planted. However, here’s the positive news …

1. The field is drying out nicely.
2. We haven’t gotten impatient enough to “mud” in the crop and cause long-term problems.
3. In previous wet years, our best corn was planted May 19-20 which is our expected planting date.

Our planter is running on some well-drained soybean ground today and for the rest of the week. Perhaps the middle of next week we’ll get back to corn planting. We have 3 fields of corn to plant and the Blank Slate is number 1 on the list.

For some reason I can’t get the picture to upload on Blogger, so you’ll have to visit https://twitter.com/darrenhefty to take a look.

The current plan is to plant the Blank Slate field on Saturday. Conditions are fit on 90% of the field today. Hopefully the rest comes around in time. If not, we’ll plant around it and come back later.

Seeing too many guys rush into planting ground that’s too wet and sticky underneath. Watch out for sidewall compaction!  It’s just not worth doing that. Your crop suffers all year.

Hope to have another update and some pictures soon.

This is my 5 year old son, Carson, playing with a neighbor dog. I like the picture because it symbalizes the fun we have on the farm working with animals and plants as well. A special thank you goes to the Responsible Nutrient Management Foundation for posting my blogs at www.rnmf.org. If you haven’t heard of this group or visited their website, I encourage you to check it out. The website is fairly new, so come back again throughout the spring as it becomes populated with even more useful tools and resources.

On May 3rd, 2010 we planted the first crop under our control on the field I’m affectionately calling the Blank Slate. My how fast a year goes! Since we have new readers today, I’ll explain that the Blank Slate is a 60 acre farm my wife and I bought that had been cash rented as long as anyone could remember. Consequently, the field had been mined and the nutrient levels were very low. The two more important things that had been lost, though, were the organic matter in the soil and the topsoil from the hills. My goal with this field is to build it back up and to protect the soil from further erosion with every decision I make on this farm for the rest of my farming career.

Here’s what the field looked like immediately after harvest. We used a chopping head on one of the two combines running in the field which left the stalks looking all the same as you can see here. It also chopped up the residue into 6 inch chunks that laid nicely over the winter protecting my soil from wind and water erosion. Those 6 inch pieces are easy to move with our strip tillage tool we normally use to place fertilizer. In this particular field it was used simply to open up a path through all the residue for us to plant into.

Here’s a picture of what things looked like this spring. Pretty much the same as last fall.

We’re working on other fields now but hope to be planting this field by Saturday if the soil conditions are fit. We’ll be applying the fertilizer and crop protection products then too. Hope you have a great week as well!