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WC Mn/Dakotas | "What about when your in an environment that needs 30k for a 150 bushel area? Some years 200 and some years 100 depending on mother nature"
Do you have yield data? Why would you ever need to plant 30k in a 100bu yield environment?
"So there is no soil in Minnesota or environment that quote-unquote it won't work here. LOL quote on quote it's only a management thing and some learning. Sounds like you're trying to talk to Minnesota Farmers about soil health.....hmmm"
What is "it" that your referring to?
"I have a 2 acre piece that fertility should be off the charts how would you like me to manage it next year. I will put 15,000 10,000 20,000 you tell me the population you want planted. You tell me what fertilizer program to run and chemical program to run I will make sure I get it planted as soon as possible and that all functions are applied Timely. All costs will be kept track of and we'll see how it cash flows"
A 2 acre field? Or a 2 acre zone? If fertility is "off the chart" good why are you wanting to plant <20k? Why would you need to add any more fert? What are the proven yields?
"Did several years of population studies with Pioneer and yield followed population. 20000 population did not make as much money as the 36,000 population over several years and many replications each year. At around $3 per 1200 seeds that's roughly $48 difference in seed cost and on $3.50 corn and a 50 bushel difference it pays to go with the population. Using the same fertility program. The 36000 looked good like just slightly tipped back oh, the 42,000 actually yielded more but started to lose the cash flow advantage over the 36 and then you run into standability issues and stuff like that. The 20,000 just simply could not Flex up enough to make up the revenue difference. Every plant had this massive ear that was folded the tip and a lot of plans had a good sucker ear."
Were these population trials based on yield environment (like with vrt in mind), or a best flat rate across varying yield environments? Huge difference, actually day and night.
I look at typical seed company population advice pretty casually. Really only to the extent of a hybrids recommended population in relationship to other hybrids from that company. Does it need to be pushed or not? Beyond that its pretty worthless information in a sales brochure for what I do. Its not information based with vrt in mind and I don't consult for anything that is flat rated. I may start with a few fields to get a grower started, but I'm more of a "you have to commit the whole farm" type of deal. I've found that if I don't push for a whole farm mentality, then growers don't really invest in making it work and give up or make excuses why they "think" it wont/doesn't work. Many like the idea of precision ag, but won't really study the data to make changes. Their gut is still more powerful than THIER data.
I have my own data of population based on yield environment for my population scripts (with a few slight variations based on a growers original general flat population mentality). The original data i started with was derived from local universities and seed companies long term research farm near me. Average flex hybrids in avg year in avg weather, broken down to various yield environments.
This is a great starting point as growers transition from a flat rate population mentality to a vrt mentality. Also their fertility is "off" and has been for decades of flat rating nutrients, so it doesn't have to be perfect to get started. I also place 2 pairs of learning blocks in poor, medium, and best zones in each field. I do run a computer analysis of these blocks to look at as a whole, not so much individually (too small of an area and too many ways to have errors compounded) These blocks really are best utilized by boots on the ground pre harvest hand analysis). Then I've got a scripts that can adjust a previous script based on bu/ksds and other ways i can massage data to get the output im after that you just can't manually put numbers to zones. Its an evolution and every growers pace is different.
I don't know why, but Pioneer really struggles in wc mn/dakotas. To the north (mn/nd/canada) the real short and to the south (Tx) the long day hybrids really excell. But the 90-100 almost always is 20-30 bu less
I agree the "right" population is going to change based on economics, but that is getting pretty specific. Many more bigger issues and/or lower hanging fruit to work on first imho | |
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It doesn’t look like we pushed population enough
