News

Farmers to try new products during Plant ’21 because of higher crop prices

Midwestern farmers are making plans for the 2021 planting season.

Northwestern Indiana farmer Kendell Culp says he will adopt some new products this year because of higher crop prices.

“I’m going to try some other things to enhance productivity through some products for the soil, some product for the plants, and some additional fungicides,” he says. “I’m going to do some additional experiments and put some additional dollars on it. Last year, when we were looking at $3.00-$3.15 corn it didn’t make a lot of sense to put a lot of dollars in. But, I hear that from other farmers that they’re willing to try some new products this year because the pay off can be good if the conditions are right.”

Culp serves on the American Soybean Association board of directors and is farm policy committee chair.

South Dakota farmer and ASA President Kevin Scott says there will be a focus on new technologies that sequester carbon.

“The prices dictate that we’ll have a little money to spend on those things and we’ll test them,” he says. “So there will be a lot of new product testing on farms in the next year or two and that’s a good thing. We’re trying to produce more with less.”

Illinois farmer and ASA secretary Daryl Cates says he is planning to apply fungicides he doesn’t typically use.

“Normally I don’t use fungicides especially in the last couple of years with commodity prices and trying to keep input costs down,” he says. “I will be adding dry ammonium sulfate (AMS) to all my soils this year,” He says. “I will add 200 pounds to the acre on the corn and 100 pounds to the acre on the soybeans to try and help get that sulfur back in the soil.”

Kentucky farmer Gerry Hayden says the most important thing on his farm is to pre-buy fertilizer and inputs.

“When commodity prices go up, our production cost goes up and if we can get a handle on that this year we’re ahead,” he says.

Hayden has served on the ASA board of directors since 2014.

Brownfield spoke with the farmers during an American Soybean Association session of the virtual 2021 Commodity Classic.

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Your email address will not be published.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!