The "burn streak pattern " is a classic large-sprayer signature. It is caused by reloading with a new chemical but not flushing the boom of the previous mixture. The "V" shows the flushing of the old chemical, first in the center (shortest path from the tank) and progressing on out to the boom tips.

Farmers attempt to manage light and water to maximize grain yields. No sweat until the numbers change. The forecast from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of a 9° F increase over the next century affects row crop agriculture in the following ways, scientists say: Warmer night temperatures will greatly affect corn yields.

This might be a year to only do what pencils out. Here are tips and research on what may make sense for you to reduce this year. From fertilizer tips to seeding rates and product use, to overhead costs and weather planning, university experts offer their best research and ideas to help you save money this growing season.

This OptRx canopy sensor uses three light wavelengths to assess crop nitrogen sufficiency and applies the appropriate variable rate of N on the go. Think different “If we could predict and control the weather, we could manage nitrogen perfectly,” says Cliff Snyder, nitrogen program director, International Plant Nutrition Institute.

Farming is not getting any easier; the low-hanging fruit has been picked. How do young producers achieve success with falling prices? “That’s what makes farming so much fun,” says Tim Couser, a Nevada, Iowa, farmer. “It’s half sci- ence and half art. Being a low-cost producer takes a lot of work; the next yield breakthrough will de nitely be harder to achieve.”

You can’t change the weather, but you can change cropping practices that boost soil productivity. Tillage, for example, “is one of the few things in farming under our control that really impacts soil productivity,” says Jerry Hatfield, plant physiologist and director, National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment. “Your crop’s photosynthesis captures solar energy and stores it in the underground carbon cycle. Underground microbes store carbon as soil aggregates, but they are fragile. Tilling the soil oxidizes that carbon, depleting aggregate stability that gets you through droughts and floods,” Hatfield adds. “We can easily produce 300-bu. corn with our modern genetics if we had our prairie soil systems. Prairie soils ended up being productive because they have a large soil biological component that maintained aggregate stability and continual nutrient cycling to supply water and nutrients to plants during the growing season.” Hatfield’s National Lab (see http://bit.ly/NatL_Lab) grew 290-bu. corn in the 2012 drought year “in a prairie system with the capability to extract moisture to 7 ft. deep,” he says. “You control your soil productivity through practices affecting soil organic matter.” Soil organic matter levels are inherently linked to water infiltration and nutrient availability, Hatfield says. For example, “You double soil’s water-holding capacity, (plus other things, too) as soil organic matter (SOM) increases from 1% to 4.5%. “If you look at a field yield map, yield variation corresponds directly to soil water availability during grain fill in July and August. At tasseling a corn stand looks pretty uniform, and it hasn’t required much water until then. Most of the time, water availability under normal rainfall patterns accounts for 20% of corn yield loss. We can manage this soil-water availability through conservation farming methods. “In soybeans, you can gain or lose 40 bushels/acre during 3 weeks in August, pending your soil’s capacity to hold that vital limiting 3-4 inches of water,” Hatfield says.

The following 15 pointers will help you get the most from your phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) fertilizer investment. They come from Dan Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension nutrient management specialist. Soil-test regularly and follow those recommendations. Although soil tests aren’t perfect, they’re your best indicator of nutrient sufficiency.

Wet weather in much of the Soybean Belt adds insult to injury for growers, on top of battling market downturns and trade issues. With another wet planting season, this article provides some tips for common soybean diseases based upon the latest university research.

Yield is highly dependent on how crop genetics interact with the environment. That’s why changing your tillage system is an influential variable not to be taken lightly, says Dorian Gatchell, independent certified professional agronomist and owner of Minnesota Ag Services Consulting, Granite Falls, Minn. Considerations before reducing tillage include: crop genetics, residue management, weed and disease control, and zone tillage. Conservation tillage helps reduce soil erosion and build soil organic matter. It's defined as leaving at least 30% residue on the soil surface after planting. (Following harvest, soil-surface residue levels for corn are typically about 75 to 90% without shredding, Purdue University specialists say.) One example of tillage’s impact really hit home for Gatchell when he viewed an NDVI aerial image of a farmer’s field. The perimeter stood out dramatically compared to the rest of the field, where the farmer had made additional passes around the field edge. Soil compaction had made a sizable difference.

In your farming career, you have about 40 crops to get things right. Bill and Joe Horan were ahead of schedule in 2002 when they first grew pharmaceuticals in recombinant crops. The enterprise began with a shoebox-sized, triple-sealed container of corn representing one biotech company’s multi-million-dollar investment in genetic technology. This farm family grows modified corn for pharmaceutical purposes Bill Horan grows recombinant pharmaceutical proteins in crops using sunlight, soil, water, and air as raw materials. This family farm has grown modified corn, tobacco, rice and potatoes that produce medically valuable drugs and enzymes. The high-profit, highly regulated farm enterprise diversifies them from low-margin commodity crops. (They also grow commodity corn.) “So, three of us make a living from about 4,000 acres of corn,” Bill Horan says. Their crops are a next-generation pharmaceutical production system. The Horans call it biomanufacturing. They biologically reproduce transgenic medical proteins, vaccines and therapeutic compounds. It’s safer and less expensive to reproduce biomedicines in plants because plants don’t carry animal contaminants such as mad cow disease, HIV, circoviruses, etc., says Scott Deeter, CEO of Ventria Bioscience, which develops these products. And plants reproduce pharmaceuticals the same every time (or perfect fidelity, as they say in the industry). The Horans once grew this seed reproduced in highly regulated, special transgenic corn. They have since begun growing specialized potatoes on their Rockwell City, Iowa, farm, making Hepatitis-B vaccine and virus antibodies. They’ve also produced nicotine-free tobacco. About 14 years ago, the Horans began growing a recombinant human enzyme, lipase, in transgenic corn. Lipase is needed by cystic fibrosis patients. To these fourth-generation farmers, this is a promising way to attract agriculture’s best and brightest back to rural America. “South America cannot compete with us on this because they lack the regulatory system it requires,” Horan says. The Horans invested countless hours of online research to identify this high-margin, new business that potentially allows farmers to generate some real dollars. Horan was exposed to nutraceuticals (food extracts known for their health-improving content, such as amino acids, essential fatty acids or high-vitamin content) as a NCGA board member, but learned that pharmaceuticals were more profitable. Their search identified a French company, Meristem Therapeutics, which used corn as its plant platform of choice. It was interested in larger production. “We thought we knew something about growing corn, so we contacted and invited them to visit us here; and they invited us to visit them in France,” Horan says. Meristem sought offshore growers, for fear of French GMO activists destroying genetically engineered crops, Horan says. The Horans began growing modified corn as their crop host, to reproduce lipase (a fat-digesting enzyme needed by cystic fibrosis patients). The transgenic corn was isolated by time, biology and distance to prevent pollen drift. They removed its transgenic tassels before they produced pollen, and isolated it with 1 square mile of soybeans. “We used commercial corn to pollinate the silks on the transgenic corn. You only get half as much protein, but you remove any risk of spreading the transgenic protein,” Horan says. They harvested the medicinal crop with a special combine and stored it in a locked barn, burning discarded material and plowing over the test plot to bury dropped kernels. They sprayed any volunteers the next spring with glyphosate. Their biggest plot has been 40 acres; some are less than 1 acre.

A new farmland financial index could bring liquidity to the farmland market, say the developers of the PeakSoil Iowa Cropland Value Index. Paul Kanitra, PeakSoilIndexes president, sees it providing investment vehicles on par with other commodities. The PeakSoil Iowa Cropland Value Index is derived from recorded Declaration of Value documentation from 20 randomly chosen Iowa counties.

Can you trace a kernel of your corn back to its field, seed lot and agronomic program? Can you delegate field operations to free your time for marketing and risk management? These are two of several improvements in JCS Family Farms’ move to more professional management systems. Jim and Cathy Sladek, Iowa City, IA, are third-generation producers with a rapidly growing continuous- corn operation. Most of their corn acres are specialty, including waxy and non-GMO, plus white contracted for Quaker Oats. In a broad sense, the Sladeks’ management approach breaks the conventions of a “heritage business,” Jim and Cathy say. “Farming typically involves a traditional mindset in this country,” Jim says, “doing a lot of things just because our fathers did them that way, like tillage. With some of the best soils in the world (Tama-Muscatine), we’ve also had the unfortunate ‘privilege’ of failing to develop more efficient practices used by our South American counterparts. They are our competitors, and we’re behind them in many ways.”

Many growers would say tillage trips are their farm's energy hog. Conventional tillage requires about 4.5 gal. /acre more than no-till or strip-till, but surprisingly it's not the largest energy user. Crop drying is actually the energy villain in Corn Belt operations, according to a study of 50 Iowa growers.