News

Jul 25, 2023

Rains come just in time for XtremeAg farmers

XtremeAg farmers Kelly Garrett and Johnny Verell report much needed precipitation. XtremeAg XtremeAg farmers Kelly Garrett and Johnny Verell report much needed precipitation. Kevin Matthews continues

XtremeAg farmers Kelly Garrett and Johnny Verell report much needed precipitation.

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XtremeAg farmers Kelly Garrett and Johnny Verell report much needed precipitation. Kevin Matthews continues to receive timely rains, as well.

We surveyed our corn acres and determined that over 75% of our corn is considered good to excellent at this point in the season. So, we called in the aerial service to make an unplanned v-10 application before we make our fungicide pass in a few weeks. We foliar applied a mix of sulfur, carbon, micronutrients, and a PGR in order to balance the nitrogen that is mineralizing in our soil. We are also going to make the same pass on a couple hundred acres that we identified as marginal corn to see if we can spur some healing on those acres. We will make our VT pass at fungicide and another R5 pass on the corn that is good to excellent.

This pass is costing about $37, so on $5 corn we’re looking at $7.5 bushel. We really believe there will be a nice ROI.

Since receiving rain, our corn has been looking much better than it did the week of our field day at the beginning of June. It is amazing how much difference a rain shower can make on these plants.

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We also just put in a new grain dryer that can dry corn four times faster. This should really increase our efficiency at harvest.

We are always about seven days away from drought conditions here in the north Delta region of western Tennessee. A couple of weeks ago, we had a 110° F. heat index and no rain in sight. The crops were starting to hurt, but then we got lucky and received about .75” of rain on more than half of our ground. The rain and the cooler temperatures that followed came exactly when we needed it most. That's been the story of this season.

This year has been a tale of extremes. We started out the season unusually cool and damp and then went straight to very hot and dry. The crop has been pushed to right to the edge a few times before getting the rain it needed. The extreme temperature swings have kept the crops in constant state of stress it seems.

Our irrigated crops are looking average to above average, but our dryland acres are going to need some more moisture again soon. We will have a better indication of just how much moisture the crop is lacking when it begins to fill out in a few more weeks.

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This week we are going through the corn and applying fungicide. We also started on full season soybeans which is about 1/3 of our soybean acres, the rest are double-crop beans. We apply a foliar feed with sugars and PGRs at the same time as the fungicide.

We got done cutting our wheat about June 12. We were very pleased with the outcome of the wheat. Even though we had damp and cool conditions, we still made out with a good crop.

Our biggest challenge aside from the weather this season has been the cost of money and the cost of doing business. The markets have been extremely volatile the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it changes the way we farm by having us hold on to a quite a bit of our wheat and last year’s corn until we can find a good place to sell it.

The good news is that we have not really seen any signs of disease yet. We usually see some signs of Southern Rust by this time, but the lack of tropical disturbances coming up from the Gulf this season has slowed down the disease track so far.

If you like the weather today in North Carolina just wait a few minutes, or a day, and everything will change! We had no 90° F. days until July 1, and now the heat is on. Fortunately, we’ve had very good moisture and scattered thunderstorms, but the 100+ degree heat index and crop demands are depleting those soil moisture levels fast.

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This past week we have been flushing out our drip and pivot irrigation systems which has made for some long days, and a few unexpected, but welcome baths, while working on those long hot days. All of our irrigation is now up and running and the crops look great for the most part with rains in the forecast.

Our wheat is all harvested, and the double-crop soybeans are all planted. Now we just have to really push those soybeans to maximize our double-crop yields. We are working closely with the experts at AgroLiquid, Concept AgriTek, Sound Ag, Nachurs, and Spraytec to really push our XtremeAg trial plots this year as we try to make our double crop yields to competitive with our full season soybeans. It’s going to be a fun to see how this season turns out.

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