Small additions, big profits: Ways to increase yields, ROI on farm

ATLANTA, Ind. — In 2022, farmers face high costs and limited supplies, meaning they need ways to invest their dollars wisely, said Scott Beck, president of Beck’s Hybrids.

Beck’s hosted a virtual Practical Farm Research meeting to share information with farmers.

“When evaluating Practical Farm Research each year, I tend to look for some of those small additions that can add big profits,” said Nate Firle, regional agronomy manager at Beck’s.

“Those small additions come in many different shapes and sizes. It might be a small input cost, a small use rate or a small time investment. It also might just be a small nutritional need like sulfur.”

Sulfur

Corn and soybeans are not getting as much sulfur from the atmosphere now compared to the past, Firle said.

Research shows that corn needs around 20 pounds of sulfur per acre added to achieve a 240-bushel corn crop. For soybeans, 10 to 15 pounds per acre is recommended for 80-bushel soybeans.

Sugar

“I look at sugar as a small investment into higher profits,” Firle said. “We’ve been testing sugar through PFR for the last 10 years. We’ve seen a handful of products become PFR proven. New to the list was Syntose FA.”

Sugar products may only add one or two bushels, but it’s also a low-cost way to boost yield.

“The cost ranges from $3 to $6 an acre,” Firle said. “With PFR-proven sugar products, it comes down to, what is that use rate that fits with your program, and when will we apply it?”

In 2021, Beck’s conducted a stress mitigation study looking at Flexstar application.

With chemical availability limited in 2022, farmers may need to consider going back to Flexstar or Cobra products, Firle said, which are known to cause bronzing on plants.

“Some of these products, like Mitigate Plus and Stimtide, are designed to help that plant mitigate that stress,” Firle said. “Farmers reached out and said, ‘Hey, I use sugar and that helps. So, we added it to the study.

“Lo and behold, in our multi-location data this year that sugar application gave us the highest yield and highest ROI. That’s a $3 to $4 investment per acre giving us a $30 ROI.”

FARMserver

The FARMserver app helps farmers save time.

“New is our growth stage model,” Firle said. “Using VT as an example on corn, we know that fungicide is a profitable application at that time.

“Ten days prior, we may get a notification saying your corn is approaching VT. Here are some helpful tips from PFR that can help you improve that profitability. It may be carrier rate or time of day.

“With soybeans, it can often be hard to identify when that R3 growth stage is. This tool can help us manage many different fields and many different planting dates without having to scout every day to make sure we’re hitting the right growth stage.”

Talc Replacement

Lastly, a small application rate that can result in big profits lies in talc replacement.

“Talc is designed to lubricate that row unit, increase the efficiency of singulation and help our center row planters get that seed evenly distributed to the rows,” Firle said.

Beck’s plans to continue research talc replacement in 2022.

Learn more at www.beckshybrids.com/PFR.