Good crops start with good early decisions

STARKVILLE, Miss. -- While profit in farming often comes down to what the weather and markets did that year, the decisions farmers make from the beginning impact the bottom line in many important ways.

Growers use the winter months after harvest and before spring planting to make decisions for their next crops. Justin Calhoun, soybean specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, spoke to growers during that time about some ways to make the best decisions.

For years now, U.S. companies spend billions of dollars developing seeds with traits designed to handle different soil conditions, insect and disease threats, growing season conditions and more. Data on how the seeds performed in field trials, coupled with yield information, is presented so farmers can match their on-farm needs with available seed options.

The Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, or MAFES, is heavily involved in these trials conducted under actual production systems each year at locations both on MSU facilities and in on-farm settings across the state. MSU Extension participates in these trials and holds field days as one way to make the data available to growers.

From data gathered in an on-farm variety demonstration program funded by the Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board, Calhoun gave the statistical odds of guessing the top three seeds, as judged by their performance in scientific variety trials using common methods.

“Choosing by brand loyalty gives you a 20% to 35% choice of getting the top three performers,” Calhoun said. “It’s the same with asking a friend or neighbor what you should pick. You get it right 20% to 35% of the time. Throwing a dart with your eyes closed gets you a 28.5% chance of picking the top three performers.

“The real way to choose it is to eliminate the losers,” he said. “Eliminate the bad ones for your soil and climate and then start to look for what is best.”

With soybeans, determining what is the best seed begins with selecting the maturity group that works best for a particular location. Calhoun is working on a new soybean variety choosing guide, which will come out later this year.

Calhoun said there are several soybean decisions that pay off, starting with selecting the correct variety for the area. Using the best seed variety can increase profitability by up to $53 an acre, he said.

“Drop seeding rate by 35,000 seeds per acre and planting 105,000 seed per acre rather than the higher rate of 140,000 that is commonly used can save $11 per acre,” he said. “And delay application of harvest aid until the plant is more mature can save up to $44 an acre.

“That’s a total savings or increased earnings of $108 with no increased investment,” Calhoun said.

Brian Pieralisi, Extension cotton specialist, said seed decisions are best made after looking at the variety tests run in Mississippi and neighboring Tennessee and Arkansas.

“Narrow it down to region, then agronomic practice such as dryland or irrigated production,” he said. “Notice which seed varieties keep popping up. There’s no guarantee you’ll make the perfect choice, but you’ve done all your homework.”

Pieralisi said as with soybeans, growers make mistakes when they make selections based exclusively on brand loyalty.

“So many new varieties are coming through the market that we have little experience with, but you have to look at them because some of the ones we have won’t be there forever,” Pieralisi said.

After variety selection, a solid nutrient management plan is the next priority. This includes correct fertilizer application and efficient use, which sometimes means split application of fertilizer.

“That indirectly helps you with insect pressure and everything else, including nitrogen management and defoliation at the end of the year,” Pieralisi said.

Timing crop inputs is vital, as is monitoring for pests once the crop is growing.

“Cut back in areas where you can,” Pieralisi said. “Backing off of seeding rates a little bit and backing off on nitrogen and timing its application well can save a bit on the input side of things.”

Overall yield is important, but profitability is more than yield and good prices.

“If you max out your inputs and max out your outputs, you may or may not be profitable,” Pieralisi said. “But if you can maintain a high level of output with less inputs, that’s where I’d like to see people focusing this year.”

This year’s corn crop is already underway across much of the state. Erick Larson, Extension grain crop agronomist, urged growers to always use variety trial data for seed selections.

“All the major row crops in Mississippi have a MAFES variety trial that includes a vast number of different companies’ products which are grown and tested,” Larson said. “We also plant the best hybrids in about 20 corn hybrid demonstration plots all around the state and publish the data.”

Using this data and then managing nitrogen are some of the most important aspects of corn production.

“Every little bit of efficiency helps,” he said. “Nitrogen management was our primary issue last year, and it and seeding rate are two good opportunities to improve economic returns during this difficult ag economy. You need to find the sweet spot, so you’re not over-applying the rates of nitrogen and seed.”

Find variety trial and current crop information on all the state’s major row crops at https://www.mississippi-crops.com.