November 17, 2021 Edition

 

“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” – Mark Twain

Mr. Twain always has a way of kindly tickling the old brain cells.  I think he is basically saying that facts are facts regardless of the circumstances, while statistics could easily be more adaptive to the conditions.  In agriculture, there is probably a tendency for most of the comparisons to change from one end of the farm to the other (soil types/rainfall patterns) or just from season to season based on climate differences.  Regardless, it’s always best to keep an open mind and dig a little deeper when possible (more on this topic later).

Like usual, the questions from area farm producers have been numerous.  Therefore, I’ll try to hit the most common topics in brief fashion and in no particular order: fertilizer price concerns, weed resistance, on-farm data analysis, and machinery investments.

Fertilizer Price Concerns

One grain marketing analysist earlier this month stated, “despite the high fertilizer prices, the profitability with corn production is still at an advantage over soybeans and other crops.  I just ran the numbers again yesterday.”

Only your team can determine if this would be a true statement for your specific farm operation, but many folks are trying to think outside the box in how they are handling the combination of high fertilizer prices and high nitrogen carryover amounts as we begin planning for the next cropping cycle.

One idea that comes to mind is the thought around corn-on-corn.  With all the field work that was accomplished this autumn, many of the regions corn fields have had adequate tillage and drainage, maybe even some phosphorous and potash applied, and could easily be planted back to corn in 2022.  With a nice seedbed being developed for corn planting, a corn-on-corn rotation could maximize the net return on investment for that nitrogen carryover.

When considering corn hybrid selection for corn-on-corn acres, there are a few additional items to consider.  First and foremost (arguably) should be the tolerance rating to Goss’s Wilt.  Goss’s Wilt was not that prevalent in 2021, but there is still plenty of inoculum around and weather conditions may just create a vastly different story next season.  I’d also favor giving some extra consideration to stress emergence and drought tolerance.  Whenever drought tolerance comes into play, we can increase our success by implementing variable rate planting to help with the drought tolerance and any late season standability concerns (stalk and root strength scores).  

If you’re looking for some resources to point you in the right direction for fertilizer inputs to drive additional yield and some additional thoughts outside the box, the Granular Agronomy team from Corteva just made available some of their work from the 2020 season.  They analyzed corn yield along with soil and tissue test analysis across 94 locations throughout the Midwest for the growing season. 

Some key takeaways from this research include:

• Increased base soil fertility levels in potassium (K), zinc (Zn), and manganese (Mn) drove greater yields

• Early nitrogen availability in tissue tests were a key in driving more yield production

• Sustained nutrient available levels of both phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) into reproductive stages drove greater yields

• Sulfur concentrations were elevated in tissue tests for high yielding environments

• The potassium to magnesium ratio drives cell wall building and was consistently under 10:1 in the tissue analysis for low yield environments.  Improvement into the 13-17:1 range was evident for high yield environments

• The calcium to potassium ratio can be detrimental to corn productivity in high Ca soil types.  Improving potassium levels in these situations lowers the Ca:K ratio and drives more productivity.  

All the details can be viewed at the following link and I encourage you to have a read:  https://granular.ag/blog/7-soil-and-tissue-truths-of-high-yielding-corn/

Weed Resistance

It’s that time of year when some of the scientific work from over the summer begins to see some publicity.  In this case, it revolves around the fact that botanists continue to find that herbicide selection is quickly finding individual plants that contain a mechanism or two to develop into resistant weed populations.  Broadleaf weeds in soybeans continue to be the most challenging scenario where farm managers are struggling with finding consistent and reliable solutions.  

This summer, waterhemp populations in both Illinois and Tennessee have revealed dicamba resistance at over 4x application rates.  The specific waterhemp population referenced from Illinois comes from Champaign County and is also resistant to 2,4-D (another Group 4 herbicide along with dicamba), ALS inhibitors (Harmony/Express – Group 2), atrazine (Group 5), PPO-inhibitors (Flexstar/Cobra – Group 14), HPPD inhibitors (Calisto/Laudis/Balance – Group 27) and acetemides (metolachlor – Group 15).  The article doesn’t mention glyphosate resistance in this population, but one would assume so.  This population is still susceptible to glufosinate (Liberty) but it probably wouldn’t take long for that to develop if Liberty became relied upon too heavily.  Remember in 2020, we had a confirmed glufosinate resistant population of Palmer amaranth (a pigweed cousin to waterhemp) in Tennessee. 

The writing is on the wall for farm managers up here in northern North Dakota and Minnesota… herbicides alone are not a sustainable long-term answer for our cropping systems.  However, even with this waterhemp population in Illinois, there are several tools available today for the farm manager to implement along with the few remaining chemical options.  Unfortunately, those tools are not as effective and simple as herbicide only programs and will take some long-term dedication to dramatically help reduce the weed population numbers.

https://agfaxweedsolutions.com/harvest-weed-seed-control-an-overview-from-u-s-aussie-researchers/ 

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/2021/11/10/dicamba-resistant-waterhemp-il-tn  

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2020/07/27/dicamba-resistant-palmer-amaranth  

Machinery Investments – Long Game 

Shay Foulk had a very informative article in AgWeb last month regarding upgrading farm machinery investments.  As more profit opportunity comes into the picture, many operations will be looking towards upgrading farm machinery within the business.  I know many operations have already started the planning and executing of their strategy, but regardless of where your operation currently sits with machinery, this should be an informative article to review.

https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/play-long-game-machinery-investments 

On-Farm Data Analysis

They say that most adults need to hear or read something multiple times for it to completely absorb into the memory banks.  Therefore, since I continue to have many conversations around yield and performance, I’ll reiterate my thoughts around on-farm data analysis and the 2021 growing season:

• Corn hybrid comparisons are best when the relative maturity (RM) difference between the products is between 2-3 RM.  We can easily judge this by grain moisture content.  For corn, every 0.5% of grain moisture is one RM.  Therefore, we should only be judging hybrids that are 1-2% points different in their grain moisture content.  If there is 3.5 points of moisture difference between two products – which was fairly common this season – in reality, it’s a 7 RM difference (i.e. it’s like comparing an 83 CRM hybrid versus an 90 CRM hybrid despite them both being labeled as an “85 day” product).

• With this season’s late rain events, the longer season hybrids or varieties are performing better.  As the RM difference widens, the yield performance this year can be dramatically enlarged.  Pioneer’s data for 2021 is revealing that corn hybrids in the 75-90 RM zone are performing better by an average of 3.5 to 4.0 bu/ac per CRM (see chart below).  Therefore, that “85-day” corn product (that is really a 90 RM hybrid) had a 28 bu/ac advantage out of the gate versus the hybrid that was 3.5 points drier under the growing conditions of 2021

• One trial location only tells part of the story.  The statisticians say if you are comparing two corn hybrids in a single 100-150 bu/ac environment, it will take a difference of 30-35 bu/ac between the two hybrids to have 95% confidence that the winning comparison product is actually the overall better product.  The same is true for an agronomic trail – fertility, tillage, fungicide, etc.  

• Obviously, every year is a different set of weather.  The best decisions are made by evaluating results in various locations and various environments (seasons) to greatly improve confidence.  A statistician would prefer to get up around 15-20 locations for any study to help drive their confidence in the results.