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Southern Illinois | I have been thinking a lot about how to approach next year from an overall farming perspective and I am planning on doing something most farmers wouldn't dream of. Lower my input costs and assuming I will raise lower bushels. My logic is as follows, if I buy seed that is supposed (I use that term loosely) to give me the best yields and I fertilize to top end yields I have 3 possible outcomes. Low yields, lose lots of money, average yields loose some/break even, high yields, make decent money. However, if I can dramatically reduce my inputs (buy conventional corn from a regional outfit that is still high potential, back off fertilizer based on lower yield expectations, only put on fungicide/insecticide when I know with almost 100% certainty I will be above APH over the entire farm, etc, I feel I can almost eliminate the low yields lose lots of money option at least in the short term. I know it's not a good idea to erode your APH but we are possibly looking at sustained $3.00 corn which IMO puts us in survival mode. This also has the benefit of putting downward pressure on high traited seed costs, reduces overall bushels in the system, and hopefully does so with only minimial further impact to the bottom line. The only area I refuse to cut is chemicals because I feel I can do a great job with reasonable costs and I would prefer to kill weeds with chemical rather than iron because of the cost and time associated with doing full blown tillage.
I would really appreciate feedback on this (good or bad) as it's something I have personally never done before. I have always had a singular goal of raising the most bushels possible.
Edited by wesslmnn 8/26/2017 12:37
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What are you going to do different next year?
