I have an irrigated farm that has been giving me disappointing yields for many years(30-40 bushels under what I want) and I'm trying to figure out why, and it seems like everyone has something to sell. We all know ag is heavily infested with snake-oil stuff, but now I'm just getting mad because I'm running out of people who I trust are actually trying to help me vs sell me something. I'm starting to think that nobody has any answers for me at all.

I just got advised to do grid sampling(2.5 acre grids)...instead of the zone sampling I'm doing(average zone 5-8 acres). So basically blow up and make useless all the thousands of $'s I've spent on the data I have so far. And to buy their micronutrient-in-a-jug for foliar feeding of micros. They had nothing else, I have complete soil and tissue tests up the wazzu for them to look at, and since they can't find any problems with my farming methods, they just give me the must gutless and pointless recommendations I can imagine.

And the more I dive into the agronomic part of this the more I'm starting to think its full of frauds and know-nothings. I am not an expert an agronomy, and never claim to me, but I am an expert at BS. That is one thing in this world I'm good at.....I know that when I see it and smell it, and my God do I get a LOT of BS. And I know its BS, because when I challenge what they say, they have nothing to back it up. When I challenge the notion of foliar feeding micros by comparing the amount of actual product I'm getting combined with the actual leaf coverage, they have nothing but statements like "efficiency". Thats BS, I know it. I don't have to be an agronomic expert to know that. When 95% of the product hits the dirt instead of the leaf, you might as well just treat the dirt.

When I mention the immobile nature of boron within the corn plant the response was: "Well, how does it get it out of the ground?" WTH? Where am I supposed to go from there? It was a profound amount of self-restraint that kept me from walking out of that meeting right at that moment.

But since I'm open to trying things I'm asking right now: Are there any independent studies that show any yield response from broad-based foliar applied micronutrients available? I want actual independent studies with test strips, not company propaganda. And I'm not interested in "We use it and have good corn" If you aren't doing test strips you don't know if its doing anything.

Like I said, I do test strips for a lot of different things all the time. But I don't think its gonna close the gap on 30-40 bushel shortfall.