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Translate your soil test into a budget that meets your needs.
Fast Facts
1. Pushing yield means higher risk.
The more you push for top yield, the more capital your farm has to hold until the crop is sold – a risk that may not pay off, says Beer.
“If something goes wrong and you don’t meet that yield goal, you can’t go back and pull that Nitrogen and phosphorus back out of the ground and adjust. It’s spent.”
Read Does Fertile Soil Always Mean a Higher Yield?
2. Leaving acres empty could cost you more than you save.
Fixed costs stay the same regardless of whether or not you plant on a low-performing acre. Rentz, for example, has a fixed cost of $447. Beer says leaving it fallow would cost Rentz $447 in addition to the yield loss, while planting it would offset those fixed costs and create a smaller deficit.
“I’d look at adjusting the budget or potentially switching crops,” he says. “There are opportunities in other crops or even taking lower yields but still making money.”
3. Spending more than 20% of your budget on fertilizer may be justified.
In addition to leveraging soil test data to build a crop nutrition plan, Beer recommends growers check data from previous growing years to see what has been profitable in the past. When faced with cutting back on phosphorus or going over the 20% fertilizer benchmark, Rentz chose the higher allocation based on previous years’ performance.
Event Videos
Check out other video resources to help you elevate your crop nutrition plan.
