With planting season weeks away, we decided it was a good time to ask exhibitors this week at Commodity Classic — What is your number one tip for #Plant18?
Here’s what some companies had to say:
“We get one shot to put this crop in the ground and to make sure the soil condition and everything is fit to put that crop in the ground. Pay attention to details. At a $3 corn market, every bushel counts. Everybody gets in a hurry once you start to stir the dirt, but sometimes taking the time, doing it right, making sure we get the right products in the right spot can make all the difference in the fall.”
— Adam Ploog, Western Business Manager, Wyffels Hybrids
“Know what your driver weeds are. Pick some herbicide programs that have the modes of action against your particular weed issues you are facing. Use multiple products that are able to accomplish that weed control and consider herbicides that are going to give you good crop safety so we are not giving up any yield to the herbicide affecting the crop.”
— Kent Bennis, Market Development Specialist Southern Iowa, Corteva
“From a farmer standpoint, know what you have out there, address it, and get in contact with those local experts in your area to discuss a plan. One thing that we try to provide folks is the opportunity to not only go at a select time frame, but a wide window of application with some of our options like PerfectMatch herbicide — To get ready for a spring wheat crop, know what you have out there and know some of the powerful tools like PerfectMatch herbicide you can use in those fields for troublesome weeds.
— Jon Verhelst, U.S. Cereal Herbicide Product Manager, Corteva
“Since we are talking about weed resistance, I think the importance of starting clean — making sure we are starting with a weed-free seed bed, whether we do that will tillage, whether we do that with chemistry, or a combination of both, but making sure we start with a weed-free seed bed is a good first step.”
— John Smith, Regional Agronomist, Winfield United
“Really looking to your lender — to not just got to them for loans or leases or even crop insurance — but for advice and looking at them more as a partner in your operation. Working with our financial officers, working with producers on a more in-depth level so making sure our producers really understand what their break-even is, what their cost of production is, and then how to make decisions based off of that information.”
— Tara Durbin, Senior Vice President of Agricultural Lending, Farm Credit Mid-America
“I think the number one tip that we do on my farm — my family farms in Central Kansas — is really to sit down and say what we are going to do that whole season from a holistic perspective. What is the fertility practice we are going to put on in the fall? Tillage practice? And really have a solid game plan. Obviously Mother Nature is going to mess that up in some way or another throughout the season and having some backup strategies especially as it comes to plant nutrition is going to be key. So if you can’t get in and apply the right herbicide at the right time with the right point of nutrition agent, make sure you have a backup plan — let’s say if you are applying two stages later in a soybean crop, you can still get a nutritional on it at the right time.”
— Ryan Bartlett, Vice President of Innovation and Product Development, Compass Minerals
