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Farmer’s
Experiment Delivers Bigger Crop, Bigger Bottom Line For Most farmers in western Kentucky, Mark French’s story is not that different than their own. He is a generational farmer, mostly corn and beans, farming a combination of river bottom land and wind-blown sandy ridge tops. Farming along the Ohio River means you don’t own any land, you simply borrow it until the river decides to take back what she has left behind in years past. Topsoil is also on loan on the sand-based hills as the soil of the higher ground is picked up and moved to your neighbor’s farm by winds that believe in frequent redistribution of resources. It is in this environment that Mark French farms. Some years with great yields and good quality, some years with weather-related set backs. Every year, though, he is faced with the same input costs. Generally that means at least 150#’s of anhydrous, a base application of NPK. In business terms those are fixed costs for him. He knows he is going to have those expenses every year, if he wants to pull a crop off of his land. What is not fixed is the price he will receive for his crop, or if he will even have a crop. So, like most farmers, French began looking for ways to either lower his input costs or raise his income. What he found along the way was better soil, better crops, and a bigger bottom line.
French has seen farmers, like himself, trapped in an endless cycle of wanting to change their situation, but being afraid to risk losses by experimenting with new technology. In fact, he says that is one thing that hurts most people. “Farmers are not willing to accept new technology,” he continues “but what’s it gonna hurt you to try $100 of something. Use your normal (chemicals and fertilizers) at full rate don’t cut the rate. But you need to try things on small parts of your farm.” In 2004, he did just that, he tried a relatively new product that he had been hearing a little bit about on a small portion of his crop. The product was Monty’s Liquid Fertilizer, manufactured by a growing Kentucky-based company. He decided to first try it out as a seed starter on 8 rows of his corn, still planning on using his traditional fertilizers, just in case. Once he dug up his first set of plants and looked at the roots, he was sold. “The difference in the root mass was incredible. Their were a lot more of those hair-like roots on the treated crop.” That was early April. By mid-May when he planted his beans he had seen enough to convince himself to use the seed starter on his entire field, with plans to make a follow-up application mid-season on part of it. After his wheat was harvested, he even applied more of the product to his double crop beans, and reduced his traditional fertilizer application. By mid-season he knew he needed to apply his herbicide (glyphosate-based product). Instead of heading out into the field with his herbicide only, he followed some advice and tank-mixed the two products. The scientist within told him to do a few more tests, so he began altering the rate of application of his weed killer. “I wanted to put this stuff to the test. My field where I was planting my double crop beans had just about been taken over by giant ragweed. The weeds were so big I could hardly drive over it. I cut back my glyphosate to about half of what I normally use, and mixed it with the Monty’s. That weed is hard to control in my bottom land, and even with a reduced rate I got an excellent kill.” French experienced similar results with his side-dressed fertilizer on his corn. He further divided his eight rows into smaller sections so that he could see what his result looked liked with a full, two-thirds, and zero application rate of anhydrous coupled with another application of Monty’s. The results indicated that his yield was about 85 bushels to the acre with Monty’s only, hardly acceptable. When he applied the liquid fertilizer with 85-100 pounds of anhydrous he got the same yield as when he used 150-160 pounds of anhydrous alone, his normal application rate. With Monty’s Liquid Fertilizer, the cost savings was more than enough to justify his test, and the expense of the new additive. On his soybeans, where he used both the seed starter and the mid-season weed-and-feed combo application he saw his yields double. In French’s words, “That first bushel covered my expenses, the extra bushel per acre was my profit.” This was in a summer that started off excessively wet then turn very dry. “The treated beans stayed green two-weeks longer as the drought came on. On these sandy soils, I can see where Monty’s will be the difference between a disaster and a crop some years. In a dry year this stuff is really gonna pay!” The difference did not end in the field, however. French would have been pleased with the decrease in expenses, and an equal or higher yield with fewer inputs. When he took his corn to the elevator, though, he got another surprise. “I guess cob rot had been a problem in this area. My elevator man told me that my treated crop did not have a problem like everyone else did. He asked me what I had done. I just said ‘Monty’s’.” His test weights all held up and his quality was a little higher. Fewer inputs, fewer problems, more money, this is one experiment that paid off. French says this upcoming season his entire crop will receive seed starter and a mid-season foliar application. Says French, “I’m going heavier this year than I did last year. I’ll foliar feed all my beans twice. I can afford to fertilize this way, versus trying to fertilize everything granular.” French is even going to expand his tests this upcoming growing season, to see if his willingness to experiment can continue to grow his bottom line, while he is growing his crops. |
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Monty's
Plant Food Co., Inc.
4800
Strawberry Lane, Louisville, Kentucky 40209 (800)
978-6342) |