Building a Fertility Plan Within the Max Yield System

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Welcome back to anot

her episode of the EZAg Podcast, where innovative farming meets practical solutions. I'm your host, Matt Long, and today we're going to be joined by Jackson Lewis again and going to be answering more of your questions about the Max Yield system. Specifically, we're going to talk today about the fertility plan. And so, Jackson, give you the chance to start off with a couple

questions that growers have been having around the fertility plan of the Max Yield system.

Okay. So, I guess how does fertility planning fit into the Max Yield system instead of being its whole own separate thing?

Yeah. I mean, I think you know, what growers are used to doing in the past is they, you know, they work with their seed provider or their seed consultant or crop consultant to select the hybrid that they're going to plant on their farm, and then they work with their co-op or nutrient or other fertilizer dealer to decide what they're going to do from a fertility basis. And so really what we're trying to do with the Max Yield system is bring in all the pieces—crop plan, seed plan, fertilizer plan, or fertility plan, and crop protection plan—into one so that they understand how those pieces can work together to create the highest yield. And so bringing that fertility plan in, you know, how does that look different than what they're doing in the past? We're not only looking at yield goal and soil test data or historical fertility amounts. We're looking at also what that overall farm goal is from a bushel per thousand standpoint as well as what that field-by-field goal is on that bushels per thousand and yield to make those decisions.

So, okay. Why is it important to kind of match that fertility plan with a yield goal instead of just one big program?

Yeah, I mean, so what a lot of guys do is kind of blanket application of their fertilizer inputs. Say on dryland, they might be using 60 to 100 pounds of N, and they're going to use that across every field on their operation. And when we look at it on a field-by-field basis, one, we're going to take into account the soil test data that we have from that field to understand how much free fertility they have available to this crop. And then we're also going to take into account the actual productive capacity of this field in the past. So, if you remember back when we started the crop plan, we look at the bushels per thousand yield goal on a field-by-field basis, and we set that based on looking at the historical yield and population of the field. And so, if we know historically this field's made 90 bushel and it's 15,000 population, that's a six bushel per thousand, we're going to try to drive that to seven or eight. Then we're going to use that information in the fertility plan. Knowing where that base is and knowing where the baseline soil test values are kind of gives us the start. And then we build off of that in our recommendations, you know, to our bushels per thousand yield goal of if we're trying to get to seven or eight, we're going to have to do something different than what we've been doing that's getting us to six.

Okay. So, what is the timing of your fertility application? How does that impact the yield?

Yeah, I mean, I think timing of fertility application is a little bit of a tricky thing. And so, in my opinion, where we always start with the grower is, you know, understanding where they're at and where we might be able to fit other applications in. And so, what I like to do, especially on dry land, and I do it on irrigated, too, with a fair number of guys and in fields is start with a good base of fertility application up front or in the early season and then use an opportunity, you know, at that VT R1 stage, you know, when we're starting to tassel and silk and create the grain. We try to use that stage to do what I call the top off or blow the top off, you know. So, if we're a little bit short, we have an opportunity in there to top it off or if we've had really good growing conditions through the year, we have the opportunity to maybe add something to blow the top off of that yield. And so, that's kind of my basic fertility application is figure out how to fit it in to the operations you already have on the field and then reserve something for later. And the good thing about reserving something for later is if the crop isn't there, you don't have to spend that money, you know. So, if we're having a drought or a disaster or we had a hail storm and the crop's not going to be there, we don't have to spend that money. But if it is there, then let's go ahead and continue to invest in that crop to get that highest yield.

Okay, I guess that kind of plays into this next one, but kind of what are you doing to monitor those fields during the growing season and what can kind of change in what you're recommending for fertility?

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple different things you can do to monitor. The only thing I really use tissue sampling for is really information to help me inform what I can do differently next year. Because typically once you see a deficiency on a tissue sample, like the impact is already being seen. And so if we're doing tissue sampling, we're going to use those tissue sample results to inform how we should go out upfront and do a better job on this nutrient or that to make sure we don't have that deficiency next year. So in season, the things we're doing to help inform whether we continue to invest in a crop or not is really just in-field scouting. You know, the drive-by approach is okay, but getting out in the field and actually, you know, seeing, you know, how consistent our stand is, rating our bushels per thousand potential in the early season and understanding, you know, that we have the opportunity to excel or not, is always part of it. And then just watching Mother Nature unfold. So, like I said, if it's going to be hot and dry and we're going to have a potential crop failure, you know, we're probably going to pull back on that later season investment into those crops versus if we've had mild weather with a lot of rainfall, you know, we probably have the potential to invest and see a major return on that investment.

Okay. Then throughout the growing season, what does Red Barn do to kind of evaluate field conditions and maybe try to pick out some limiting yield factors?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, one of the things we like to do early season is kind of go out there and based on population and plant uniformity, we can estimate the bushels per thousand that we expect to get out of that crop if Mother Nature and the rest of our plans follow through. And so we can kind of go out there and do that early season evaluation, and then we often follow up. I mean, it's not a regular weekly scouting like a crop consulting service would be. You know, but sometimes bi-weekly or every three to four weeks. We try to be in a lot of our growers' fields. We try to support them any way that they request as well in that crop scouting, but just trying to be in the field and understand, you know, whether that crop has the potential or not, and then consult with those growers as the season's going along, you know what our thoughts are versus what their thoughts are and whether whether we should should keep going or not.

So, what are some of the biggest threats throughout the growing season that you see and what are you kind of doing to try and protect the crop from that?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest threats start when the planter pulls into the field. If we don't do a good enough job at planting, you know, then we have this variable we have this crop that's growing at variable stages. And when you have a crop that's growing at variable stages, the weaklings or the runts out there in the field are obviously causing stress on others by emitting stress hormones and those other plants pick that up and then they become under stress. And so that risk starts when the planter enters the field. If we do a good job at planting, the majority of the risk is weather after that. And so we're just kind of evaluating that weather risk, if we did a good job at planting and and trying to make that decision and help the growers make that decision.

Okay. How does the fertility plan and the Max Yield system help growers be more proactive instead of reactive when making their decisions?

Yeah, I mean I think the big thing there is it identifies the points in the system where you need to be reactive. You know, so like what we've been talking about right here a lot, these later season fertility applications, those are something we need to we're proactively planning for, but we're reactively deciding whether to do it or not. And so the proactive portion again, you know, just like the other parts of the Max Yield system, you know, lining out all the work we have to do and kind of the timeline that we want to get that work done in and what we need from a supply standpoint, whether it's fertilizer, chemical, or seed equipment, manpower. Kind of getting all that set up is the proactive part. And then the reactive part is, you know, just evaluating those conditions and making that decision in season of do we keep going or do we pull back?

Okay. So then when everything kind of lines up, when the Max Yield system and the fertility plan and the in-season management all come together good, what results do you see in the field?

Yeah, I mean I think the result that we're going for is the highest yield, obviously, but also the highest ROI. And so when everything aligns, yeah, we're hitting on all cylinders in yield and ROI and that's what, you know, that's what really makes our growers' operations work.

Okay. Then in the next episode we're talking about harvest evaluation. Why is it important to kind of look back and think about that instead of just moving on to the next thing next season?

Yeah, I mean yield is a number and it's and it's part of the harvest evaluation, but there's a lot of other things that we can evaluate in that field to determine, you know, whether we were successful or not at kind of some of the goals we set out to do. And so, you know, I think obviously other things that you can see in the combine that you can't see after it it's over. If you had lodging and disease pressure and stuff like that, you can typically see that at harvest or just before harvest. You know, and then you can you can always evaluate the effectiveness of the planter pass, and harvest is one of the best times to evaluate that because you're literally going across every row of the field. And so one of us jumping in the combine with our grower and just making observations as we go through the field about intactness, about ear height, about overall plant health and things like that, makes a difference and it informs some of the decisions that we might just need to tweak for the next crop year. Once the combines run through the field and you have the yield numbers, all you've got is the number. This one made 90 and this one made 120. What was the difference? Without those observations, all you know is the 30 bushel difference.

No, that kind of wraps up my questions for fertility plan, anyway, so thank you. I appreciate it.

Until next time, remember, ag is Easy when you tune into the EZ Ag Podcast.

That’s all for today, I’m Matt Long, 

Grow Your Yield, Grow Your Legacy, Grow Strong with Axis Seed.