Corn crop prices are low and fertilizer prices are high. Farmers are looking for ways to lower their nitrogen (N) fertilizer bill. University N recommendations have changed over the years. University N research in the 1950’s advocated heavy N fertilizer because yield increased as N application increased?? Extra N fertilizer was a cheap fertilizer insurance policy. About 10–15 years ago, universities re-examined that original data and found little direct relationship between higher corn yields and higher N rates. The relationship was quite variable! Five major factors like temperature, moisture (weather), soil pH, soil oxygen levels, and soil organic matter (SOM) affects plant N uptake. The N relationship to yield is so variable that universities went to a N application rate based on the price of N relative to crop prices. As N prices increase and crop prices decrease, economically it’s better to cut back while if N is cheap and corn prices high, the N rate is increased to increas...

Getting a new herbicide approved may take 12–15 years and cost over $300 million dollars. That’s just for the successful herbicides. The last new herbicide modes of action occurred about 40 years ago, but now several companies are finally releasing new herbicides effective against weed resistant weeds. Developing safe new herbicides is a multi facet project. First, large numbers of chemicals have to be manually screened. Now with AI, this process is much faster. Today most new herbicides are designed to be more site specific for either a targeted site or a weed group. After screening, it has to be tested multiple times to make sure it is biologically active but also does not harm the crop. Then environmental testing and toxicology tests are performed followed by field testing and formulations. A new herbicide has to cross several hurdles to get approved. Bayer invests about 1 billion dollars per year in agricultural research looking for new herbicides and or modes of action. The first ...

Entering a new year is a time when people look to future possibilities. Farming is changing quickly with artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and data processing. Another change is how we farm, horizontally versus vertically. Vertical farming is growing crops in stacked vertical layers, often with the use of hydroponics and definitely with a controlled environment. Why the need for vertical farming? Our population is growing about 1% per year and current estimates are that by 2050, the world will need about 50% more food. In the last 40 years, almost 40% of our arable land used for farming has disappeared or is no longer available for farming. Houses, cities, streets, and roads take up a lot of land used to grow crops and food. By 2050, almost 80% of the people will live in urban areas and many of these areas are becoming food deserts without access to quality healthy green vegetables and crops. With vertical farming, crops are now being grown in skyscrapers, warehouses, and even sh...

  Dr. Eileen Kladivko, agricultural engineer, Purdue University has conducted drainage research for 44 years. About 35 years ago, Purdue installed 4 inch plastic tile on hard to drain, clay resistant soils (Clermont somewhat similar to Paulding Clay). Clemont soil has a clay pan 2.5 to 3 feet deep which act like a bowl, filling up with water so the subsoil stays wet. This research started in the 1980’s using 5, 10, 20 meter spacings (16, 33, 66 feet) compared to no tile drainage (over 40 m or 132 feet). Dr. Kladivko data shows that drainage pays, even on tough clay soils with a claypan. Benefits include more timely spring field operations; improved yields; positive results from other conservation practices; and improved cover crop, hay, and small grains crops growing in the fall and over the winter. Kladivko found that even during dry times, there were positive benefits subsurface tile drainage. The first 10 years, the rotation was corn after corn due to farmers interest in that pr...