Crops flourish and grow quickly in the spring. The first cutting of hay may be 50% higher than any other cutting. It’s not just due to more water. Increased spring growth comes from plant available nutrients (PAvN) from dormant microbes. Usually, this spring flush lasts 30-45 days, but with good management, this growth (and yield) flush may last all summer. However, it starts with fall nutrient management. All soil nutrients are part of a biological system. Each element is like a component or part in an engine. If one component is lacking or missing, the engine may not run as well or even stop running. Soil nutrients, especially micronutrients, are the activators to many biological processes. Over the winter; microbes release nutrients when they die, are consumed by others, but also when they are active. Plant available nutrients (PAvN) include many elements. The major positive charged elements called cations include ammonium (nitrogen), potassium, calcium, magnesium, and even so...

  Everyone likes to follow a winner! Top farmers develop a suite of management practices that allows them to achieve higher average yields than their neighbors. High crop yields usually come from doing several things right and usually the weather has to cooperate. The world record holder on corn, David Hula, recently shared several of his high yielding management practices. Hula holds the all-time world corn yield record of 616 bushels set in 2019, on an irrigated strip till farm in Charles City, Virginia. Strip-till is a system where a 6-inch ban is tilled (fall or spring) before corn is planted. About 80% (24 inches in a 30-inch row) is left as no-till. The six-inch ban warms up quickly in the spring and allows corn to get a quick start. Cover crops can be planted between the tilled strips to add carbon and to improve soil health. Hula says getting corn off to a good start is a major key to high corn yields. The strip till section is usually a little drier and in a wet spring, mu...

  Beneficial soil fungus called mycorrhizae fungi (MF) can optimize crop yields. MF use to be abundant be MF must have a live root as a host. Plowing soil, fallow periods, and annual crops caused many beneficial MF to died off. Long fallow periods, 14-16 weeks; greatly reduce (85- 98%) MF population levels while shorter fallow periods, 3-6 weeks; reduce MF populations 30- 70%. Some hardy MF species survive in tilled crop land but using cover crops with a live root, can gradually increase MF populations over time (maybe 5-10 years). Inoculating a crop with MF spores speeds up the process and crops respond quickly.  A full rate of MF inoculant, depending on formulation, costs about $12-15/acre. This rate is designed to provide 150,000 propagules (spores and root fragments containing MF) or more per acre. MF research on crops is extensive with over 155,000 published research articles at this time with 10X more research articles on the use of corn (maize MF) than corn using anhydr...

  Mycorrhizal fungi (MF) are one of the most beneficial organisms on the planet. These fungi colonize plant roots, acting as root extenders to aid roots. MF are more efficient than roots and MF benefits are numerous. Increased root mass. Plants allocate a certain amount of energy to the root system. In the absence of MF, plants must build root hairs, which requires a lot of energy. Plants colonized with MF do not produce root hairs and instead use a much smaller amount of energy to allow MF to perform the job of absorbing water and nutrients. The hyphae (root-like structure) of MF is about 1/16th the diameter of a root hair (1/10 the diameter of human hair), and it takes about 1/256th the energy investment per mm of length to build than a root hair. With this energy savings, MF colonized plants tend to build much better root systems. Improved drought tolerance. One of the primary functions of a root system is water uptake and a colonized root will do so much better than an uncoloni...