This Week in Ag #16
If the TV show MythBusters ever did a program on farming, there are several common myths about farmers they could bust.
This Week in Ag #15
“Your rows sure are straight.” Those may have been the most pride-filling words I ever heard. They were first spoken to me by one of my landlords, Orville Larson, the spring after my dad passed away and all farming operations fell entirely on me. Orville made a habit of driving out
This Week in Ag #14
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That popular saying could just as easily apply to planting corn. It’s impossible to recover from planting time mishaps. Don’t believe it? Try this. Walk into a cornfield where plants have recently emerged. Identify a plant that’s shorter than
This Week in Ag #13
Corn came screaming out of the ground in just five days on my farm at Agricenter International in Memphis. Other than the seed and herbicide, I’m using 100% Huma® products. My belief is that you don’t just farm the crop, you farm the soil. These Mid-South soils have low organic matter
This Week in Ag #12
#Plant23 is well underway. From the time seeds are sown, how many days should it take for crops to emerge? That can vary greatly, from days to weeks. But for many crops, it’s not really about calendar days, but Growing Degree Days (GDD).
This Week in Ag #11
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge seed products by their bag covers. There’s lots of telling information on them. Just look at this bag of seeds going on my farm. The bag itself prominently features the brand name and logo (AgriGold), type of product (corn), the
This Week in Ag #10
Football may be a game of inches, but farming is a business of fractional inches. Take planting. Seed placement is paramount to the success of a crop. Farmers spend lots of time calculating the optimum rate and depth to plant their seeds based on genetics, soil type, soil conditions, weather, management
This Week in Ag #9
Regenerative agriculture is not some passing fad. It’s now a movement. And it’s here to stay. How can we be sure? Just look at who’s driving it. Unlike well-intentioned predecessors, such as LISA (Low Input Sustainable Agriculture), regen ag has a financial benefactor: food companies. From lofty goals articulated by their
This Week in Ag #8
Farmers love to grow corn. Only twice in modern history has corn not held the title of the most-grown crop in the USA. That was in 2018 and (if you count it) 1983, when the government’s PIK program artificially swayed planting practices. Spurred by record fertilizer prices, many projected soybeans
This Week in Ag #7
For most farmers, April means the start of planting season. It’s a lot like opening day for a baseball team: heavy planning, great excitement and anticipation, lots of optimism and more than a few watch outs. So when exactly do farmers start planting? While they all have a plan, Mother Nature usually
