 Thank you very much. It's good to be here with you today And I do bring greetings from corn and wheat growers in North Carolina who I think are struggling with some of the same questions that Mark addressed and and that's probably on your mind and that is How many corn acres are we going to plant this year? And what are we going to do with these low commodity prices? We we struggled to get 600,000 acres of wheat in the ground in North Carolina After being up in the nine hundred to a million acres for the last two years We're going to struggle I think this year to get 500,000 acres of corn in the ground after being up in the eight nine hundred thousand range I think we're going to help come close to that four million bean acreage here in North Carolina The way it goes so I want us to think a little bit today about how we're going to Address these low commodity prices and what kind of strategies we want to have You know, it is all about being efficient mark mentions that this market's going to try to drive us toward the point of Less than profit margins here, and it's going to be up to you to become more efficient And these are some of the strategies I think you need to be thinking about as you think about being more Efficient first of all remember yield is a multiplier You subtract input cost, but you multiply yield Oftentimes say the corn growers in North Carolina if you could grow 200 bushel corn consistently And that's about 40 to 50 bushels over their nationwide average. Do you really care what the price is? Now, yeah, they always tell me yes, we do And they do because they care about their profit margin and how much money they're going to bring home But you're going to make money anytime you can graze 200 bushel corn at least in today's corn Systems the second and third thing I think Corn growers need to think about in these markets today is first of all select inputs with a high likelihood of returning value They're going to contribute to increasing yield I want to know about them and I want to utilize them in my corn production system or I might select inputs that reduce my risk and You say is there such an input in corn production today something that will allow me to reduce the risk I have of having adverse weather or conditions where that might affect that yield level that I have and yes indeed there is Drought tolerant hybrids is one way that we can reduce risk and we're talk We're going to talk just briefly about those in the time that I have here today So let's talk a little bit about the inputs here That's part of what I think is those key strategies for corn production in 2015 is finding inputs that are going to make a Difference and contribute to that yield goal that I have on my farm And these are some of the things that I think aren't critical the important to maintaining that 180 200 bushel 200 plus bushel yields that I think I need to have first of all hybrids And I mentioned drought hybrids, but there's others characteristics of hybrids and you need to be your need to fit that hybrid You've got a system where you got irrigation where you got good soils where you got that potential for two hour plus bushel Yeah, let's have a hybrid that can realize those goals if you've got us place where you've got dry land corn it's sandy You may not get a rain at just the right time. I want a hybrid that's going to fit that situation So I think we ought at least recognize that hybrid is important part of this second plant populations I've been known in North Carolina as proponent of high plant seeding rates and high plant population cornfield I think that's the only way to capture the light that we need In order to realize yield importance of early growth nitrogen. I'm not good touch on that very much here We got experts talking about nutrient management here Fungicide should I or should I not be using a fungicide in my corn production system? So let's take a look at this This is one of the ways that I've been looking at it in North Carolina over the last three years And that is trying to put all these components together in a system and that's what I'm calling this intense advantage But what I've got here is is six hybrids six pretty good hybrids for North Carolina There's a drought tolerant aqua max hybrid right there from Pioneer included in this bunch I've got four locations these two locations in the eastern part of the state are organic soils Very high productive soils probably some of our best of corn land in the state The Stokes County location is on a Piedmont soil clay loam Some of you are familiar with those types of soils and then Samson County That's a coastal plain sandy very sandy Norfolk Not quite a Lynch burger rain So it's a pretty sandy soil situation out there what I'm talking about when I mentioned intensity management under each of these systems I'm talking about a higher seeding rate about 10,000 seeds Above the standard seeding rate in that intensity management. I'm talking about utilizing Something to get that corn out of the ground quicker Perhaps an infer a fertilizer or perhaps a seed treatment We've been testing over the last two or three years and looking at trying to get that corn popped up more uniformly Get good early growth. So that's part of that intensive system now in the standard practice I am using a starter fertilizer in a two-by-two band ten gallons of starter fertilizer a two-by-two band So I'm not not doing anything to try to get that corn going but it's I'm enhancing that early Fertilizer system there in the intensity management. I'm using a fungicide applied to V8 or an R1 and then I may or may not use extra nitrogen In most all of these comparisons even the standard practice I'm using at least 230 units of nitrogen and that's that should be plenty Should be plenty of nitrogen for more corn situations in North Carolina. I suspect there. That's true here for Alabama as well But you could see here in these comparisons wherever I have two yellow boxes side by side Underneath those location. I had a significant increase in yield due to that intensity management system And you could see here the locations and situations or at least hybrid situations where that occurred in 2014 particularly in Stokes County notice the high yield there at 318 bushels This did get some irrigation At this site there, but you notice in order to get any of these yields of the 180 to 300 I had to use intensity management to get that over that 250 to 270 range that we were in at the standard Practice under irrigation, you notice that we did barely well under a sandy loam soil there in all cases I increased yield anywhere from 10 bushels and on up using some of these practices now Obviously they come at a higher cost So I need to know which of these practices really contributed and which ones that I could leave in in the box So to speak and not utilize so let's take a look at each of each of these approaches here And which ones helped me most of all in reaching some of those 300 or to high 200 bushel yield First of all the right hybrid as I said earlier There's a place to put these hybrids that enhance the value of the system that we had now This is that high productive soil in Pamlico County. We also have irrigation at this site So we're not lacking in water in most years. You notice we were at 200 or in 2012 We were up in the 300 bushel range with some of these hybrids Even this year and some of these yields here were cut short mainly because a hurricane author that caused some damage We had potential up in that 300 range at this site in 2014 as well I've highlighted the average yields here with this red bar here And you got to take in count that for a pioneer that drought to aqua max hybrid there only has two Taverage and doesn't have that high 2012 year even so I think the trends in 2013 or 14 are Early indicative of the performance of that hybrid. What do we see here? That's interesting and selecting a hybrid for these highly productive irrigation type situations Well, first of all, these hybrids are good growthy hybrids. There's 26 fit 1615 1690 or 2088. These are tall hybrids a lot of growth potential So they tend to be a little longer maturing or later maturing hybrids a lot of opportunity to capture sunlight and Convert it into yield even more important I think the characteristic that highlights these two hybrids is their ability to flex the ear a little bit that high Tall hybrid has that ability increased ear size a little under good conditions That's the kind of hybrid we want in those irrigated soils these flexier type hybrids get that longer ear That taller stock that allows us to get better sunlight into the canopy and increase our yield potential here We do not want the drought tolerant hybrid in that situation Nor do we want some of these shorter fixed ear hybrids here particularly that type that represents at 64 69 Now how about a different situation? Here's that sandy soil in Samson County Where we don't have irrigation now we had some pretty good rain in that site in 2014 like some of you did here in Alabama But most of the time we can have some dry weather there and again I'm highlighting some of these same hybrids and you notice the hybrids that tend to do better here are the shorter Statured hybrids with very fixed or fixed statured ears that have a limited ear length to them That make sure that we fill that ear with kernels and keep that yield level consistent across different drought stresses There is where that drought tolerant hybrid at least has a potential to contribute to to our system In those kind of conditions. Here's here's a direct comparison and looking at these drought hybrids over the last Actually three years I've got two years up here because we put these hybrids at the very same site in 2012 and in 2014 Notice in 2012 that's these yellow bars here or golden bars if you want to see it that way Notice the 2014 severe drought the conventional hybrids here 60 not 64 69 16 15 20 88 had We're very severely affected. You look at the aqua max or the artesian hybrid there from Sinjana Basically kept us in the ballgame kept us from losing our lunch so to speak there about a 64 bushel difference If I take the average of these three against the average of those two there in 2014 we didn't have nearly a severe drought in this location. It was dry There's no irrigation here, and they had a long for drawing period there and in June and early July where we didn't get any rainfall Even so our yields weren't too bad there again There's the aqua max artesian and then this is the new Monsanto drought guard material right here compared to its isoline the 66 40 overall not a big difference And that's what I'm going to expect under these these different conditions with these drought guard materials They're going to help protect your investment that the weather really goes bad against you They're going to be about average under average conditions and when those very good conditions come along They're going to perform slightly worse than these better hybrids So that gives you an idea where to place these they have a potential to protect your risk But you've got to consider them as that type of thing and insurance against bad weather All right next step more light Reduce stress Light is what you're harvesting. That's your factory right there. That's what you're all about It's it's interesting to me to go look at these new solar panel centers that they're putting up all over the country at least in North Carolina They got these little flat panels there arrayed in rows and a certain direction to North South So supposedly to capture as much sunlight as possible I'll guarantee you that in about four or five years They're going to be fighting weeds under those dogs on solar panels like crazy Because they're letting way too much light hit the ground That's the same problem. We have in a corn production system If you're fighting weeds in your corn crop, you're letting way too much light hit the ground We need to capture everything that we can and put it into that grain and that is is what you're after This is just a trend line. There's corn yields in North Carolina over that period of time going increasing and these are the top 15 percent of the growers and there's Plant populations increasing at the same time while row spacing is is going the other way Here's the key element when thinking about capturing light You make maximum yield when you capture the most amount of light possible without stress And that's a hard thing to do actually the more light we capture the more plants we put in the field the longer We plant grow that plant the more likely we are to see some stress in that corn field That has the potential not just to take away yield, but that damage yield severely Under certain conditions. So we play sort of a a game Trading one off against the other in most situations. Here's what I call the good the bad the ugly about capture light the good How can we increase light use? Well, there's three ways maximizing the length of growing season We have irrigation and we don't worry about stress sometime during pollination in this corn field We plant our corn as early as we could And get it up in a uniform consistent manner in other words about the first time we weren't worried about a frost on some corn And getting it out of the ground Well, we'd be planting because that would maximize the number of days we capture light in the corn system later We plant the more heat units you accumulate per day the shorter your light capture period is So for you guys with irrigation you need to always be thinking how early can I get corn in the field? In order to get capture as much light as possible, of course, I'm going to talk more about plant populations I think they have the most practical advantage In capture and light and we can talk about row spacing. I think it has a limitation To what it can do for us, but it still has some contribute Of course the stress anytime we're putting more plants in the field week taking more water We're going to put our set ourselves up for stress and then it'll be ugly Of course those corn stalks get mighty thin And in a year where we get hurricane potential Or where temperatures soar we can have some difficulty in those situations in a high population court system This is what population does for us on the bottom axis. I got plant population intercepted radiation on this This is this was data taken just after silking time here. So maximum canopy in that corn field You can see a different row spacing. There's some advantage to 18 or twin rows versus a 36 rich row But the real advantage here is by increasing the number of plants corn doesn't put on Branches like a soybean plant It puts on leaves and it has a fixed number of leaves Therefore if you're going to capture more light you literally have to put more more plants in the field This would suggest that if we're looking for saturated in other words take it all the light Which is about 17 1700 Micro moles per second per meter square. We'd be up here in the 50 to 60 000 plant pop I don't know of anybody maybe except some of these high-end growers in the midwest plant at that seeding rate here today Here's what Higher populations look like when we compared them head to head in 2014 This is that same set of trials only this time instead of the entire system I'm just looking at changing from 33 000 seeds per acre to 43 000 seeds per acre in each of these locations And you've got the picture here already wherever you see boxes that are highlighted side by side Well, I've got a significant increase in yield and you notice again that about half the time here I have these 24 comparisons about half the time I had a significant increase In yield by increasing plant population to 43 000 seeds per acre And you notice most of those occurred in stoves at that high yield system there surprisingly Doing so at samson county even though i'm not sure that that's an ideal population For those sad these soils most year in 2014 it worked out fairly well Even some in some of these better soils these last year now how much is i'm risking Out of 280 dollar bag of seed 250 dollar bag of seed i can't remember which i was using there But approximately 33 dollars and 80 cents to acre I need about 7 or 7.5 bushels to the acre just to return by seed cost to my pocket How often did I return my seed cost to my pocket in these 24 comparisons? That's how often About three quarters of the time that extra 10 000 seeds returned to the product seeding rate over the last three seasons Where we've looked at these differences has been the most consistent way to return money to your pocket now it can cost you money We have seen yields go down when we've increased by 10 000 seeds under difficult or stress conditions But it is a way in which you if you match seeding rate correctly To the conditions that you can make money fairly quickly now What is that best way to match seeding rate to the conditions? Well, there's four factors you got to consider to match your seeding rate You got to know whether that hybrids going to respond to that seeding rate some hybrids don't have much response after you get into 30 000 range or a little higher You need to match it to what your water capability you need to have water to put through all those plants Fertility needs to be good and at what's your risk? My look in that year where i'm going to consider drought as being a real possibility Or another 2013-14 where good decent yields over most of north carolina Where we had good rainfall what's my risk of making the wrong decision in this case now Here's what i like to use to make to start this process I like to understand what happens at different productivity ranges To seeding rate or to at least the maximum optimum seeding rate And that's what we've got here This is actually some data that pioneer hybrid put together You've got here a yield level of about 130 40 bushel yield You can see the optimum seeding rate. There's about 26 000 compare that up here in a say the 200 bushel range here The optimum seeding rate there about 34 000 for this particular hybrid if I put a line through that It looks something like this That describes what my optimum seeding rate ought to be given different Productivity levels in my field there. So anytime I get below about 150 yield level in that field It's pretty well a linear drop there Toward 20 000 or below now. I've had some growers in north carolina say well dr. Heidegger I don't I very rarely make over 110 bushels per acre on that field and you're telling me I shouldn't be planting any more than 19 or 20 000 plants in that field. I'm higher than that right now And I tell them you need to lower it First of all, you're not going to make money growing corn like that this year. So why lose so much money if I've put that seed in a field You're going to make 110 bushels with 19 000 just as easy as you would with 26 000 So why waste the money? So indeed this reflects pretty well what we expect now if I took this And looked at this same relationship for different hybrids only in this case. I'm going to invert this graph I'm going to put the the Population up here the productivity level over here If I look at different hybrids, they have different responses For instance, there's that 1615 that's sort of a flattened out response versus a 31 p 40 Or if I looked at a d cab 6805 or 6803 Why that response would be much more linear Across that range. There is differences between hybrids for these type of responses Surprisingly most hybrids have a very similar response after we get below about 140 bushels to the acre It's above that level that you really need to be aware of whether that hybrid will respond to that different higher population These are some ways to look at fitting your right population to your field condition here year in and year out How about row spacing? What does it contribute right quick? I want to take a look at that before moving to the next topic What does row spacing contribute to me? Well, certainly we get quicker canopy So we collect light a little quicker, but that's a fairly minor effect Here's a good illustration here in this picture of different years of what row spacing actually does for us And most of our fields here today and why many growers in North Carolina have considered narrow row spacings As being essential to this drive toward higher plant populations on this graph Why I've got row spacing going up and down 20 inch 30 inch 36 inch rows is what we represent here And going sideways is the distance between plants within that row spacing So we planted the plants at different Distances and you can see that then represents different plant populations as we do that now which direction Down this way or across this way. Do we see the biggest difference in ear size in this illustration? Well, it's not with up and down with row spacing is it Most of these years look pretty consistent Between 20 inch and 36 inch rows here as long as we got six inch or greater spacing between the plants It's when we move from six inch spacing to four inch spacing between plants that things all of a sudden get very difficult Corn it turns out is an excellent competitor with itself It competes very well. Thank you And if that neighboring plant has any disadvantage whatsoever to the other It will become more more a weed and ear size will become affected So what does row spacing do? It allows us to plant higher populations and still maintain that distance between those plants down the row And you could see that here at six inch spacing. We only got 29 000 plants at 36 inch row Whereas 20 inch we can go up in the 50s With that same six inch spacing in the in the plant and we could see this in some tests that were done In the Piedmont region in north Carolina, there's actually three fields out of There's one field right here second field right here where this test was done at a third field right here What's the largest difference between a wide row and a narrow row in each of these three field situations? The largest difference comes at 38 000 where we got a significant advantage to the narrow row again It's the crowding of plants that really row spacing affects more than anything else That row spacing does some another thing that we oftentimes don't consider that is it does could serve small Rain events better than wide rows. In other words having that canopy closed earlier And having more complete canopy in a narrow row means if you get a half inch rain more than likely Most of that rain is going to go through the soil and through the plant rather than evaporate from the soil surface before It penetrates or before disperses into that soil So there are some advantages in narrows and conserving water as well as in in this effect on reducing interplant competition Third thing I want to look at here Quick emergence and growth How important is that to a good corn production system? Well, I think it is everything I've never seen 300 bushel yields produced When I've come out after two and a half weeks and that corn is struggling up Some of it's uneven in height a little bit of paleness to it I've never seen 300 bushel yields on a field look like that The only 300 bushel fields I've seen is when it is two and a half weeks It's uniformly emerged it's bright green and it's growing like a band out of hell I shouldn't have said that anyway You got the picture That's what good looking corn looks like. How do we achieve that? Well, first of all We've got to get it out of the ground and it's got to get out of the ground as uniformly as possible This is a test we did this year It was based on some comments that I read in farm journal about growers who had gone out and measured late emerging plants And seen whether or not they were at a disadvantage compared to their neighbor So what we did in this test is we went out and the first day I could see spikes out there I measured out a 20 foot row in these plots and I put little stakes by each of those little spikes I could see and then I came back 24 hours later and looked and To see whether anything else emerged and sure enough some more were coming up So I put a stake by those and then I came out 48 hours later To see if there are any more and sure enough there were a few of those It turned out about 10 of the plants in that 20 foot row section were merged either 24 or 48 hours later Then I came back with those stakes now marking those plants and I came back as we approached Harvest time and I took some ears off of those to measure And see what the impact of that delay and planting was and lo and behold you didn't have to go look for stakes All you had to do was go look for the poorest plant in the plot and sure enough It had a stake marking that it came up 24 48 hours later And this is what these ears look like. There's the untreated control The only reason I don't have two ears here is on the untreated control most of those were barren plants I didn't have an ear to pick Here I have a starter in furrow a little bit better here. I put some fungicide in furrow There's a penal X. It's a nutrient seed treatment on the seed There's an accomplisher in furrow and an enzyme treatment none of these Have the ears that are just as good as those that came up 24 hours earlier All of these illustrate the problem with late emerging plants 10 percent is way too high We need to get late emerging plants down under five or Particularly under 2 talk with randy dowdy David hula any of the high-end growers that they'll tell you first of all uniform emergence and they're exactly right Uniform emergence is critical to getting this crop in a position for good yield Now we looked at these treatments That we had had three locations this past year. We looked at these Treatments under each of those locations to see if any of them contributed to yield significantly And I have to say none of them did anything outstanding in our comparisons. There are some interesting differences here There's the check. We did put a two by two band of fertilizer 10 gallons to the acre in the check So again, wasn't like we weren't Fertilizing it to try to enhance that to that growth at the earlier. So it wasn't lack of nutrients The penal X treatment appears to have worked more consistently across the it's a nutrient seed treatment I know others have used it. I'll show you a little more data on it in a minute It does appear to have some benefits when utilized in in a high yield system Accomplish in the Piedmont region accomplished gave us the the biggest yield again not significant there We've seen a little bit out of this accomplished material. It's a bio biological material here Again, I don't know that I'm I'm ready to promote that but we have seen some responses Here's what Penlex look like where we used it in this intensive management system here There's what four out of 24 situations where I got a significant yield increase Not very exciting when I first looked at this. I thought well, it was a good try but no cigar here However, if you consider what your costs are Costs about $10 and 75 cents an acre To put Penlex on seed Small amount of material 2.7 bushels is what I would have needed to have returned money into my pocket. How often did that occur? Well it occurred a lot That's if that puts a different perspective on it for me If I can get a small yield increase maybe reduce The did the number of late emerging plants or at least the health of those plants that are emerging late There's maybe a potential for this product. I certainly think we're going to try it again In some of our tests the other aspect to start a fertilizer is again We've got to have nutrients through to that early period So we're ready when that plant is ready to start taking off at b7 During that rapid e stim elongation headed toward toward tassel and silking This is a time from about b7 to silking where we're going to put on ear size And that's most correct. We've had a lot of tests trying to look at putting more rows on the ear And we sometimes can influence but where it really comes into play is ear size You want to increase that ear size particularly as I said if you have a flex hybrid where you've got good irrigation High yield potential you want to influence that ear size and that has to happen by having it in position. There's Starter this is a higher rate of starter than what I typically use There's 20 gallons versus no starter various significant differences in growth there Here's some data that we've had out of the Sandy very sandy soil down at the actually it's a tobacco Research center and you can see here differences up to 40 bushels And having a starter versus a non starter at that site there Or a starter that included some sulfur as such as this 10 20 70 did with a zinc and sulfur addition So there's some real bandage in high yield systems. I would never plant corn today Without a starter fertilizer now. I haven't said that How often do we get our money back out of starter and what's the limits that we can achieve? Or or really go for with putting on a starter fertilizer as far as returning money to our pocket Well, here's a test now. We did this in 2012 and looking at this high yield system With starter and without starter. You notice in one location. I got every every treatment I got a significant difference and the other only one And I'll first of all tell you why that happened At hide county this grower uses a lot of animal waste On his corn systems It's clear under under those conditions Starter fertilizers not nearly as important as it is where we're not utilizing animal waste in our production system Now here's where the real rubber meets the road. We're risking at 20 gallons 70 dollars an acre or higher I added a little sulfur pack or or something to that It could easily be in the 75 80 dollar range for 20 gallons of starter fertilizer on a corn system I need 16 bushels to the acre or more To break even now how often did that occur here? Actually one time less than it was significant That tells me that well, that's a limit Of where we have can be with starter We cannot afford to go any higher than that rate and even there That rate is going to have to be on Situations where that starter is going to make a significant yield increase, which isn't all of the time This is a problem for us. We need starter. I just said we have to have it But we have to have it at rates and in conditions in which we can afford it And that's a differed pretending on whether you use an animal waste in your system What your fertility levels particularly in the top four if you're a really good corn grower Really interested in growing corn. You're not just taking a seven eight inch soil So you're taking a top three or four inch soil sample Because then you will know what nutrient levels you have in that critical zone where that plant is taking nutrients before v seven Then you know whether how much starter to utilize and what types of starter for like what blends to utilize in your system This is a critical problem It's going to cost you more than you can afford If you don't do this right and yet if you don't do it at all I can certainly guarantee it's going to cost you more than you could afford in in losing yield Finally, let's keep this leaves green all the way to maturity And there are several ways to do that I'm going to talk just briefly here about utilizing a fungicide and trying to enhance greenness All the way to maturity. Here's this same Scenario and in this case we're applying it quilled excel at b7 v8 So this is about lay by time or just a little bit later than lay by so we're not Investing a lot in an airplane to get over the top at r1. So this is a single fungicide application So here's the four locations again Draw your attention to the to the boxes where we had significant differences I I'm not totally surprised here and you shouldn't be either That we don't have a lot of significance first of all and second of all Where did we get most of the time a response? It's in high yield conditions That's I think critical to understand if you're at b7 and v8 and that corn's already struggling You're not in a high yield condition If you're at r1 And that corn's not looking very good or has endured some stress. You're not in a high yield condition You may or may not need a fungicide then So high yield conditions. How much did this cost? I'm I'm going to count the application cost here Typically if without an application cost we're looking at 12 to $14 an acre I had the application cost and got at least another 12 to $14 an acre in this thing So I'm talking about a risk of $26 an acre six bushel difference How often did that occur in 2014 on these sites? surprise surprise Or maybe not We had southern rust in North Carolina in 2014 came in just after uh july 7th And spread slowly but surely across most of the state by the time we got to maturity Early enough to make a difference And sure enough that little bit of fungicide even though it didn't significant difference and make it had enough To cover the cost of that application In most of our situations. Is that always going to be the case? Well, here's Oh, well here I just threw this in just to illustrate that There's priexer, which was a really good material against southern rust Quilled excel and approach again another material that we found to be very good against southern rust All of them yield significant better than these other materials How often though will that always occur? How about a year where we didn't have southern rust? Well, here Here's the now. This is the 26 dollars. So I'm not showing you the yield signal. This is the Income significance is what I'll try to call it right here. Not very often Only about six or seven times out of 24. Did we return our money to our pocket in 2013? So indeed disease is going to be a critical factor when fungicides really pay for you But on the other hand as I said earlier under high yield conditions I think that fungicide has a High chance of returning money to your pocket and give you something extra in the in the end All right, just to wrap it up there Hybrid as you might guess is still your best decision I'd planted it close to the right population as I could I'd make sure it got off to the best start starter fertilizer of some combination of some type Even a small amount in furrow can in can set and finally We can be effective with fungicides under high yield conditions or sometimes under stress and disease I think I got what zero time or one minute for a question Are there any questions in one minute? Yeah, there's one right back here We're doing some monitoring I didn't include our irrigation aspect because you guys got some experts in irrigation talking here But we're doing an intensive job of monitoring of water use under these intensive plants And we're making sure that when when that water hits our critical number that we're getting some irrigation on In other words, we're not letting it go under stress. You do not Get 300 bushels when you see leaves rolling up You cannot allow that plant the same thing could be said about nitrogen If you're seeing nitrogen to fit you've already lost too much yield to make a 300 bushel yield We've got in today's high yield systems to be able to predict what we need a little bit and that's more difficult We're doing some monitoring with irrigation. I think that's helping us meet that need Well, we're basically running it ourselves. We're running it through a cement mixer Treatment that's one of the biggest problems with utilizing material like Penilex And companies won't guarantee the seed anymore once you've taken it out of the bag and put another treatment on it So we've tried to work with Companies to license some people to actually do some treating It's very difficult right now with the system that we have or the current System in corn to actually put this seed treatment on in a way that keeps your your guarantee for emergence And still gets it done in a timely fashion. Yes. I recognize that's a big problem. Yeah We have done some work on looking at that on our soils For the most part and I'm talking about Organic soils or or good loamy sandy loams that have a pretty decent degree of organic material in them Not not over 1% but still a decent amount of CEC Why we're not seeing much disadvantage to go into a 20 gallon rate if we get over that It hurts our germination immediately now. I say not much disadvantage. There it there is some cost to seeding Emergence at 20 gallon So you've got to be very very careful with the starter fertilizers in that respect We mix some some with water. I like that. We've reduced the the impact on germination But again another step the most growers. I don't think what to go through it makes it fertilize with water Only Yes, I I really am a proponent of splitting that side dress application Uh, quite frankly, here's how I look at that fertility fertility for corn. First of all start, right I really need at least 30 units of nitrogen and we have seen up to 50 units of nitrogen at planting time be necessary In order to reach maximum yield. So you've got to have some nitrogen available right off the start Then at v anywhere from v5 to v7 depending on your row spacing Why being able to come in with a a the bulk of you 80 percent of the actual Nitro requirement at that time and then I I don't mind saving a little nitrogen to drop a little later on even at v10 Last time I can get over it with a high boy. Now most growers again in North Carolina don't Do that at the extra trip. So we haven't been a big promoter of it But it will give us another 10 bushels of yield or 15 sometimes With the later application like that but splitting up our nitrogen I think is is important to to realize and yield and recognizing that you do have to come at planting time with some nitrogen If you do not you'll never reach that yield that level that that yields potential for that year