Set a fertilizer budget per acre, and move on

Peter Gredig and I worked together at Country Guide magazine for many years. He farms near St. Thomas, Ont., and I always appreciated his quick analysis of circumstances and his common sense. He provides a good dose of both in a recent posting on Farms.com, his current employer. I think his first point about fertilizer is well put. His points about soybeans and corn also provide some useful insight, even if you don't grow those crops.

Here is Peter's report, called "Farming is easy in January":

I just attended a two-day conference with 1,500 other farmers — all of us looking to kick-start preparation and planning for the 2009 crop year. Experts from the U.S. and Canada delivered seminars on everything from weed control to fertility to wind power and the great ethanol debate. Talk about energizing. It’s like opening day of the baseball season — anything and everything is possible, and we’re all contenders. Everyone I chatted with seemed poised to make significant changes for 2009. For some it’s new equipment, for others it’s a shift in tillage or management. Apathy is not an issue, that’s for sure. 

Meetings and events through the winter help us get focused on the coming season. If you’re going to relevant, progressive events, it’s easy to become motivated to implement some big changes in the program for next year. But I have to confess that come mid-May, I have more than once had the thought that I’d been overly ambitious with my plans back in January. 

Here are a number of themes that were dominant at the conference I attended:

1) Fertility

Everyone is worried about fertilizer costs, almost to the point that it’s distracting us away from other issues that are just as important. The best advice I heard was to simply determine your budget for fertilizer for each crop on a per acre basis and do your best to get as much of the right nutrients as you can for the money you’ve allotted. If you haven’t done soil tests, put that task at the top of the list.

2) Soybeans trump corn

It’s partly due to high input costs for corn and the recent strength in soybean prices due to weather worries in South America, but farmers are suggesting they will favor soybeans over corn on swing acres. Over the years I’ve learned that predictions for planting intentions give markets and pundits something to talk about during the winter, but at the end of the day, the swings are rarely as dramatic as predicted. What I do find interesting is the renewed interest in non-GM, identity preserved food grade soybean contracts. The premiums look pretty attractive right now, but this is an example of something that looks easy in January. There is a reason why there is a premium here. As a smaller acreage producer, IP soybeans have been a good option for me, but most years I earn that premium. Weed control is more inconsistent than RR programs partly because the older herbicides used are reliant on timely rainfall for activation. Some IP varieties don’t yield as well as top RR varieties and it’s hard to make up for lost yield with per bushel premiums. Cleaning combines, planters, storage bins, trucks, etc. takes time and effort. There is also more paperwork involved. 

3) Jury is still out on applying fungicides to corn

A lot of corn acres were sprayed with a fungicide in 2008. Researchers say their plots showed widely variable responses to fungicides. It appears that some hybrids are very responsive to fungicides and show dramatic yield increases while other hybrids show little or no response. We have a lot to learn here. The experts suggested that you should definitely spray fungicide on corn that has suffered hail damage, or if you plan on leaving the corn in the field for an extended period in the fall. The fungicides can protect hail damaged cobs and stalks from disease proliferation, and it appears that corn treated with a fungicide offers better stalk strength and standability. Beyond this, the researchers suggested it was very difficult to provide advice as to whether a fungicide application was warranted. If you decide to spray, be sure to leave a check strip so you can assess the cost/benefit of the treatment.

4) Commodity markets will remain volatile

The market experts at this conference suggested that we can expect volatile markets to continue through 2009. Wildcards include the health of the global economy over the coming months, availability of credit for potential buyers, weather, and whether the U.S. ethanol sector can survive this period of uncertainty. There is potential for big jumps and big drops. All the experts advised paying very close attention to the markets at July 1!