As growers look for ways to survive and grow in the current agricultural economy, their efforts go hand-in-hand with trying to produce better yields and increase their profitability. Smart input decisions are a way growers can improve their operation’s efficiency to ensure a high-quality crop that results in increased yield and profitability for their overall operation.

Below are some of the inputs every grower should consider as they make smart and strategic purchase decisions for the benefit of their operation.

Seed

It all starts with selecting the appropriate seed for your geography and for your farm management practices. There are a number of factors to consider when selecting the appropriate seed, including its maturity rating, yield potential, plus pressures from disease, weeds and insects. 

Fertilizer

It’s crucial plants receive the necessary nutrients from the moment the seed is planted, so they can have a quicker and stronger emergence and maximize their genetic potential. This is why using an effective starter fertilizer as part of an overall crop nutrient program is so beneficial.

For a starter fertilizer to be the most impactful, it needs to help make the nutrients in the soil and in the fertilizer, available for uptake to the plant. An ortho ortho EDDHA chelating agent used with the starter or as a key ingredient in the starter fertilizer is a proven way plants start off stronger and result in a better yielding crop at the end of the season. Levesol™ from West Central is the purest ortho ortho EDDHA chelating agent on the market today.

Fungicides

Applying a fungicide can help growers increase yields by preventing disease and providing additional plant health benefits like improved seedling emergence, enhanced growth efficiency and better tolerance to hot temperatures. But it’s not good enough for growers to get any kind of fungicide, choosing an appropriate fungicide is essential. Before deciding what fungicide to purchase, growers should ask themselves some key questions, starting with “what spectrum of disease control are they looking for?”

Insecticides

Insecticide is another critical component of a successful crop protection strategy. Growers need to protect their plants from insect pressure, so they can take advantage of all the nutrients, soil conditions and environmental conditions to produce as much yield as possible.

Adjuvants

Once a plant starts growing, they still need additional protection throughout their lifecyle. Weed resistant management is a huge concern to many growers and ag professionals. New trait and herbicide technologies are being approved, and there is a growing need for the appropriate adjuvants to work alongside the new technologies to combat resistant weeds and help these herbicides be as effective as possible. It’s important for growers to pick an adjuvant that is compatible with the new herbicide technologies and one that will still work with conventional herbicides. The new Elite adjuvants contain water conditioners without any ammonium sulfate so they will not increase the volatility of the herbicide and will not affect the pH of the herbicide solution.

To further discuss how growers can overcome today’s low economy, we caught up with Steve Roehl from West Central Distribution during our LIFT Summit in June 2016 to get his thoughts. Check out a clip from our conversation below.

Transcript:

In today’s [agricultural] economy we always have to be careful about [and encourage] buyer beware. There are a lot of different products out there and I alluded to this in my presentation. There’s a lot of information and different people trying to solve high yields and profitable crop production. That’s why we have important meetings like the one we had today. There are a lot of intelligent people here, and Dr. Below does really do a great job of pulling all of this stuff together. So, try to think about how you’re going to compete which is the real ticket here. You have to compete within the next 10 to 20 years, and you have to make money to survive, and we’re all doing this to try to feed the world and make a living. We need to carefully examine all of these inputs and try to figure out which ones as Dr. Below alludes to are going to have the greatest impact on your particular farm.

Original Source: Leaders of In-Furrow Technology, West Central