News

Illinois farmer managing inputs closely

Programs ICONCarefully managing costs is part of the current reality of farming in a down market. Illinois farmer Daryl Cates tells Brownfield he’ll be watching the amount of fertilizer he uses this growing season, “Instead of just putting gobs on I’m making sure that we’re only going to put on what we can basically utilize especially with the nitrogen prices had been going up. They had been coming back a little bit but they’re still up plenty high.”

And Cates says he’ll be using variable seeding rates, “Raising our populations where it’s better soils we’ll push up to maybe 33,000 plants per acre. And, then in our lower yielding soils dropping it down to 28,000. So, that’s saving us some on our seed costs.”

Cates farms in Columbia, in southwestern Illinois, and is chairman of the Illinois Soybean Association.  He’s sticking with his basic rotation and this year it’ll be more corn than beans.  The only change, Cates says, will be cutting back on wheat planting by 150 acres…splitting that evenly between corn and beans.

Cates is chairman of the Illinois Soybean Association Board.

 

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!