Posted June 04, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

Our Crop Consultant, Dustin Fritzmeier, from Leoti, KS, sheds some light on the question of switching to shorter corn varieties.

Episode Transcript:

Farm Progress broadcast presents this Week in Agribusiness Serving America's most essential industry brought to you by Case IH solutions for every challenge, equipment for every farm Case IH built by farmers. Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us here for This Week in Agribusiness. I'm Mike Pearson. We're talking weather and planting across the country, and western Kansas has been gripped by drought for at least a year, but recent rainfall might be making things interesting.

This week's focus on Agronomy for your Acres with our friends from Nutrien Ag Solutions takes us to Leoti, Kansas. We're going to talk with Dustin Fritzmeier. Dustin, thanks for joining us this week. Well, thanks for having me. Let's talk about the weather there outside. The corn planting is wrapping up. You've had some recent moisture events. How do things look?

Looking pretty good. We just recently got a good inch to three inches of rain across a few counties here. And so things are looking pretty decent. So for growers who maybe don't have all their corn yet in the ground, Dustin, is this a time to start looking at a shorter variety? Well, that's always a question that comes up.

We've hit June, you know, when we spent some time making plans back in the fall about making sure we have the right variety hitting the right acre. And so we do we get a little antsy about is the corn that I currently have a little too long of season. Is it going to have enough time to finish off?

 Am I going to be able to get wheat back in behind my corn? And so these questions do start coming up. And so what I like to tell our farmers is I stick to the game plan. If we made a game plan in the fall, let's try to get that particular hybrid in our fields. If we need to make some adjustments and go to some  shorter season, we can do that too.

But that's always a great opportunity to talk to your Nutrien Ag Solutions Crop Consultant and go over what hybrids they may have available. Absolutely. It's always worthwhile to check the options. Dustin Now that you've gotten some moisture in the ground along with this crop, it's time to be thinking post emergence herbicide applications. What do you recommend this time of year?

Yes, though as soon as the corn gets in the ground. You know, we've got some guys that are wanting to hit a one-pass program. And so they're going to front load their herbicide, their residual chemical, and they're going to get that into the field to prevent those weeds from coming up. Other guys that may be in a two-pass program that have got their initial pass, once the corn has been planted, they're going to come back in 21 days after that initial application and make sure they get that residual application done again.

And so what a great time to be thinking about a product we have called Radiate. It's a plant growth hormone that's really designed to build up a robust root system in root hairs to that root ball, getting those roots deeper into the ground. It's accessing more water, more nutrients, making those things available to that plant to really set it up for its best yield potential later in season.

All right, Dustin, we've also got folks looking at test plots. What's it take to set up a plot and what are the benefits of doing something like that? Yeah, I tend to think that most farmers get excited about test plots as junior high boys do about their personal hygiene. It's just kind of an afterthought. But I got to tell you, get getting test plots out into our fields, it's a great benefit.

Not only does it help us as crop consultants begin to look at new hybrids, see the comparisons of certain day lengths out here in western Kansas, you know, we're really looking for those products that provide a really, really tough plant that can produce some good topping yield. And so we're needing to get a good look at that.

We want to be able to come to the farmer with a good amount of confidence of which product to recommend. But as a farmer, you get to look at certain varieties that work on your acres. You know, we can look at plots across western Kansas here, but in Wichita County, we want to see what works here.

And your farming practices might be different than somebody else's. What a great opportunity to figure out the agronomy that works on your acres. That's a great point. Dustin Fritzmeier, Crop Consultant, Leoti, Kansas for Nutrien Ag Solutions. Thanks for talking with us this week. You bet. And you can learn more on the website NutrienAgSolutions.com