What You Plant Matters

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Welcome to this week's episode of the EZAg podcast where innovative farming meets practical solutions.

I'm your host, Matt Long, and this week we're going to continue working through the top five factors to produce a top crop. This week focusing on factors 3 and 4 in our second episode of the series. Thanks again for joining us today. Now it's time to dig in.

I want to do a quick highlight of the top five factors to produce a top crop. We'll go through all five of them real quick. I want to remind you the reason these top five factors are what they are is because these are variables you can control when you go to the field.

Often when you talk to a grower and ask what the biggest variable in the success of your crop this year is, you get something like the weather or the markets. While the weather and the markets make a big difference in the long run, you cannot control either one of them. They are not the top five factors in producing a top crop because you can't control the outcome of those factors.

Things we talk about here like soil conditions at planting time, seed placement, seed quality, right hybrid, right field, and post planting management are all things we can control year in and year out. We often see growers overlook these because they're too focused on bigger things that are out of their control like the weather, the markets, or the calendar date when they go to the field and plant.

If you didn't catch the first episode, go back and take a listen and learn why soil conditions at planting time is the number one factor in producing a top crop and why seed placement is the number two factor.

Today we're going to talk about seed quality, the number three factor in producing a top crop.

Let's talk about seed quality. Is this something you can see when it comes out of the bag? For the most part, the answer is no. Generally, if you're looking at corn seed coming out of the bag, it's been conditioned well, treated, and has a good look to it. You can't see whether that seed quality is going to match the conditions of your field.

When you look at the tag on that bag of seed, it tells you the quality standards of the seed. If the Kansas Department of Agriculture were to come in and probe a bag or lot of seed in our warehouse and test it, it's required that the seed matches what the tag shows.

The thing about that is the only information on the tag relates to germination, which is the warm germ of the seed, inert matter, and noxious weeds that might be found in that bag. Those standards are part of seed law and every seed company has to adhere to them.

Beyond that, the rest of seed quality is specific to the organization you're buying your seed from.

At Axis Seed, we're proud of the quality of the seed in our bag. When we create our production plans, they are based on producing a set number of units at the quality we require as a brand.

We've learned the importance of seed quality and how it impacts final yield. When you have a hybrid with high warm germ but lower cold germ, and it's placed with a grower who plants early in cold soils, there's risk.

But if you have high warm germ and high cold germ, and it's placed with a grower planting early in cold or variable conditions, there's less risk of stand loss. When you reduce stand loss, you get more ears per acre. More ears per acre and more consistency in that stand typically lead to higher yield.

Because of that, we not only try to identify the right hybrid for each field, but based on the information we have on every lot of seed, we try to place the right lot with the right grower based on historical planting dates and their operation.

All of the seed in our bag meets our minimum requirements, which are very high. An 85% cold germ is the minimum requirement we have.

We test all of our seed with one of the toughest cold germ tests in the market, the 50 degree saturated cold germ test. The lab cools the seed, water, and soil before combining them and placing them in a 50 degree growth chamber to evaluate emergence.

That process induces the chilling shock that happens when the seed takes its first drink of water and shows us the true cold germination performance of the seed.

With that information, we're better able to place the right lot of the right hybrid in the right grower's field.

That's seed quality. These are things you can't see, and most seedsmen in the market likely don't have this information readily available. It's something we're proud to have and use to get the best result on every farm we work with.

Now let's move on to factor number four, right hybrid, right field.

There is no perfect hybrid. If there were, there wouldn't be so many seed companies or so many hybrids available. The perfect hybrid doesn't exist, only the right hybrid for the right field.

Locally, we do a lot of testing to make sure the hybrids we recommend fit our geography and weather patterns. Even though weather is variable, there are traits we need in every hybrid like pH tolerance, drought tolerance, and ear flex. These matter beyond just yield.

To identify the right hybrid for the right field, we evaluate the field the same way we evaluate a hybrid. We need to understand the pH of the soil, how variable it is, and the drought tendency of that field.

Drought tendency can be influenced by base saturations, previous crops, and farming practices like no-till, conventional till, or minimum till.

We also consider irrigation capacity. If irrigation is limited, we need higher ear flex and may lower populations to protect against drought while still capturing top-end yield when conditions are favorable.

The right hybrid for the right field is much more important than chasing a perfect hybrid.

Growers often want to plant one hybrid across their entire farm. That can increase risk. The more acres planted to one hybrid, the more risk you're taking if that hybrid doesn't perform.

We use a portfolio approach. The more acres a grower plants with Axis Seed, the more we diversify hybrids across their farm to spread risk and protect against variability.

From that portfolio, we help place the right hybrids on the right fields based on characteristics like pH, drought tendency, and ear flex.

That’s a quick overview of factors three and four in the top five factors to produce a top crop.

In the next episode, we’ll cover factor number five, post planting management.

Thanks again for joining us today. Remember, ag is easy when you tune in to the EZAg podcast. Grow your yield, grow your legacy, grow strong with Axis Seed.