Ot young farmer needing some guidance

I live on a small dairy in indiana that seems to keep getting bigger. I"m 21 and own all my own equipment from my milking pay I"ve saved. I make all the hay (about 400 big rounds and 1000 small squares.) for our farm and do all the manure hauling field work ect. We never ventured into row crop much, I usually keep 15 or 20 acres in corn or beans. I know a lot about making hay and have the basics down on row crops, but I want to learn how to grow better yielding crops. I have a local co-op that supplies our fertilizer and some of our seed. We use lots of Dairyland seed and Byron forages. The seeds aren"t the problems, I can get good emergence. It"s the fertility that I want to master. To be honest we probably don"t fertilize our ground as we should, but it"s limed well. Where can I learn about fertility in a practical manner? I want to be able to look at a soil test and be able to know what I should put on to make a profitable crop. Not the biggest crops necessarily. It seems like when we follow our co-ops suggestions we always put out more than what we get back from that fertilizer. I know they know what their talking about but sometimes feel they may push the application rates up to make more money, after all they sell the fertilizer. I guess all in all I"m asking how did you learn to calculate fertilizer inputs? Is there a college text book that would help? I read one about soils but it was very dry and only contained the technical material ( ions in the soil soil particles ect.) sorry for being so long winded and I know it varies a lot by climate and soil type. We farm mostly clay with some sand fields.
 
I am learning more every year about this, but my basic understanding is that N makes green, K makes fruit and P makes roots and stalk. You need an appropriate amount of the correct fertilizer to make an appropriate amount of product. Beans and alfalfa produce N, so you can count on that after planting those crops.
 
Contact your County Extension Agent. He will be familiar with the soils in your area and can help you out.
 
Develop a good relationship with your fertilizer/chemical dealer. Soil test, then soil test some more. Learn to read those soil tests. Get your dealers recommendation. Do exactly as he tells you to do the way he tells you. Keep precise notes and pay attention to how your crop is doing at all stages. Take pictures and stick them in your note book with notes.

Get down to the coffee shop O dark early, or the bar mid afternoon:), and get to know the old retired farmers. My guys, once I developed a relationship, where/are excited to help me succeed.

Refer back to those notes and use what works and discard what doesn't. I'm finding some things work consistently every year. Some depend on weather conditions when I planted,cultivated,sprayed, harvested. That has to come from actually doing it or the wisdom of those that have already done it.
 
Where I am at, you take a soil test to the county extention office and they will send it off to have annalysis done. Doesn't cost much. You pay per sample. You tell them what you are going to be planting on the ground where sample is from. The results will tell you what you need to do. So much lime, nitrogen and so on. Alot better than trying to have your own testing equipment. Thats what everyone does in my area that is doing what you are wanting to do. Real common.
 
There are many thing besides fertility that make or break you yields.

1) Fertility: Like Greg posted. Your local extension office can help you learn to know what a soil sample really means and what you actually need. They also can send them in too. I usually send some through them to "check" the fertilizer dealers/salesman.

2) Soil structure: This means your soil types on your ground. This will limit your yield potential regardless of fertility. Certain soils will only grow so much. So fertilizing for 200 bushel corn on ground that will only average 150 is wasting money.

3) Compaction: Many dairy farms compact their ground. The ways: spreading manure year round even when it is wet, chopping corn on fields that are wetter, even chopping on dry fields compacts them some, making 3-4 cuttings on ground can leave compacted "paths" through the field. Limit the traffic in your fields. When you haul bales or manure go in one track where you have to travel mutable times. Then deep rip that track in the fall.

4) Organic matter: This is not usually a problem on most dairy farms but it can be when the same few fields are used to grow your corn. This ground is cleared out on organic matter when you chop all the corn. Manure helps IF it has bedding in it. If it does not than it does not help organic matter much. Look into cover crops

5) Manure application: Too many livestock farms have a few fields that do not get there share of manure but manure is still counted as the fertilize source for them. You need to be applying your manure evenly across all of your crop ground. Do build up the "poor" areas like thin soils knobs.

6) Seed: Diary land may or may not have the best seed for your farm. You need to try some different seed each year. DO NOT use price as the determining factor in seed selection. Pioneer had a verity in the late 1980s that just "fit" my soils. It started out as one of their TOP lines and had a TOP line price. It still out produced other newer verities for over 15 years. At the end it was the "bargain basement" seed. So if you do not have DEEP rich top soil you need to try some different hybrids to find out what works for you. This can vary from farm to farm so do not listen to your neighbor for a absolute reference.

These are just a few things to think about. Go to any meeting you can that are about production. Even seed corn meetings that are "selling" their brand will have knowledge you can learn.
 
Go to your local library and borrow a book called Advancing Biological Farming by Gary Zimmer. Gary was a farmer and an Ag teacher at a school close to me, he started the business Mid Western bio ag. Now he runs a 1200 acre farm up in Spring Green WI. In the book he explains how to understand a soil test and to not only rely on a soil test but to take tissue samples of the plants to see if they are using the nutrients you put on. For some nutrients to work they have to have other nutrients, an example is calcium won't work without boron. It was a great read and I highly recommend it. Tom
 
Nasco has several good books .dont be afraid to sit and push the pencil there are a lot of salesmen out there that would like to have you buy something.when i milked my crops were equal or better then the neighbors the biggest imput i bought was lime .i measured how much i applied with the spreader (a 40 is roughly a 1/4 mile long 33 feet wide would equal an acre find out spreader capacity and you will know roughly how much you put on) and by doing that i didnt need to buy much fertilizer.also dont forget that your manure will not be all avalable the first year
 
I grew up on a dairy in N Indiana. No time off, no vacations, worked all the time. We even processed, bottled and delivered. A family operation.

That said, my dad got the idea in early 60's to plant corn, sorgum, and beans to make silage. His thinking was beans produce nitrogen and corn likes nitrogen.

What a nightmare trying to chop it up. It was so tall, like a jungle, he didn't have a tractor with enough PTO hp and go slow enough. If I remember correctly, it was so tall, the only way you could tell where he was in the field, was by looking for the diesel exhaust smoke.

Then his second nightmare began. He brought a ford 6000 first generation SOS. Tractor was so bad, Ford took it back and gave him a second generation SOS.

You may try a small plot of corn/bean mix. Dad only did this experiment for 2 or 3 years before giving up on the idea.

Has anyone planted corn and bean together for silage like my dad? Keep in mind, at the time I was only 11.
george
 
I am a younger farmer too. The more I think I figure out, the more I realize how much more there is to learn. I like to read the agtalk forum, there are some very knowledgeable guys on the crop talk forum over there. It might be worth looking at.
Josh
 
I can just picture it! Hank takes the sample, Mr. Haney (courier) takes the sample to Sam Drucker to be tested in the soil testing lab behind the counter. Ya know, that little room Sam is always coming from when someone enters the store. LOL

Greg
 
I don"t know anything about farming, but we do raise hay.

On the soil test form, it asks what crop you want to raise. With that in mind, the results on our soil tests will tell us how much of what fertilizer to apply to get a good crop.
 
contact mineral solutions plant liguid follier plant food ,,,2 gallon to the acre , get started and don't look back ,.with all the lime you have , you have a head start ,,,also since you are milking , your cows will become healthier , with less problems , milk better, eat better, and do better ....
 
The Hefty boys (Midwest seed and chemical sales outfit) have wintertime seminars through out the Midwest, some general info, a few this year are only on soil tests and soil building.

Look up ag phd and see if they are near you.

A wonderful primer on all this, and can't beat the cost. They are real low on sales pitch, and lots of info and take home booklet - all for free and a free meal too.

They have 'South Dakota ideas' so not everything they say will make sense for everyone; but it sure is a great primer, worth a little drive time to get to. I've been to 5 or so of their meetings, learn a little more every time.

You have a good starting point with dairy to really work your soils, with the manure, and likely affalfa and corn silage and sometimes a little oats in your mix, you have so much more oppertunity to work with your soils and fertility.

Well worth learning on it!

Start with ph.

Then look at what your soil currently has, and what it can hold. (Soil test and CEC levels.)

Then work on building what you can and placement of fertility from there.

Sounds easy, takes a lifetime to get right. I started late, but been trying to really improve over the last 7 years and am seeing some results over time. Manure is a great basis, balance out with other products. Then figure out timing and banding and which products work with your soil types.

You have better than average conditions with a dairy setup!

Paul
 
We tried the beans to corn rotation on our farm one time. The corn grew to be 18 to 25 foot tall and when it came time to chop it we could not find a chopper big enough to handle it even though we used twice as much tractor as the chopper required. We finally contacted a logging company and they used chainsaws to cut the corn and then hauled it to the sawmill where they sawed it into lumber. I heard they could not use the lumber because they could not drive a nail into it. Believe they finally used it to pave part of a nearby interstate highway.
 
Your state will have an "Extension" system that is online. The University of Missouri publishes what they call the MU guide. It is non partial, science based guides on everything from building a swing set for the kids to Integrated Pest Management and everything you need to know about anything farm related.

Gene
 
Find out the averages for your area first and see how you really stack up. Don't let B.S stories from neighbors claiming monster yields trick you into thinking that what you are doing is wrong or not good enough. As others have said, be careful playing the game, more does not always = more.
Learn as much as you can about cover crops and soil health. This knowledge will make you more profitable in the long run, not to mention bringing way more long-term fertility to your farm's soils than chemical fertilizers ever can.
The key to staying in the farming business long term is NOT concentrating on production, but instead concentrating on profit. What that means to you may not mean same to your neighbor. Know what your expenses are and learn to control control them.
 
Once you decide what vegetable crops you want to grow, get your soil tested first.
I would suggest building a greenhouse to start the early seedlings too.
 

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