As farmers stare down another tight-margin year, David Hula and Randy Dowdy’s key message is straight-forward: don’t wait for the markets to force your hand this year — get out in front of upcoming decisions now.
The two high-yield corn and soybean growers are personally dissecting every acre and every product, looking for places to trim costs on their own farms without trimming bushels. As they do, they’re looking for ways to protect the practices that make money while being brutally honest about addressing the ones that don’t deliver.
Here are four takeaways from their latest Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast:
1. Fertilizer Use Deserves More Scrutiny
Hula is tightening his fertility program this year. Phosphorus (P) is “on the chopping block” in some fields, especially where years of chicken litter use have built up soil reserves. He’s also rethinking how much P he needs to buy and where it’s placed. At the same time, he’s clear that his core program will remain in place.
“The starter has been a key play for us,” Hula says. “I have said time and time again, if my starter, and that’s the side placement, stops working, we’re going to stop the planters.”
Hula is also sharpening his pencil on his overall nitrogen strategy, pushing himself to match rates to realistic yield goals instead of falling back on what he calls application habits.
“Look at your NUE, or look at how many pounds you’re doing; we’re going to fine tune that by looking at what our realistic yield goal is,” he says.
Dowdy adds a different fertilizer consideration for farmers: salt management. He is scrutinizing every fertilizer pass not just on nutrient content, but on how it affects root development in corn, especially.
“We buffer salt every time we put out fertilizer,” Dowdy says.
2. Make The Planter Work Harder And Better
Dowdy refers to the planter as one of the biggest sources of “free bushels” on the farm—bushels that come from doing the planting basics at a very high level.
“If farmers are going to spend any extra time and cut back on anything, they don’t cut back on the planter, what it takes to get free bushels,” he says.
An effective planter pass starts long before the first seed hits the ground, Hula adds. He jokes that he wants to see the planter as being “Randy ready” before spring planting begins by replacing any worn parts and calibrating meters.
Once they’re in the field, both growers put precision ahead of speed. Dowdy says too many growers are still sacrificing free bushels by chasing acres at 8 to 10 mph instead of prioritizing singulation and even emergence. To him, the goal is simple: every seed in the right spot, at the right depth, on the same day, so the crop comes up in as uniform a stand as possible.
3. Know What You Need From Fungicides And Herbicides
On fungicides, Hula’s advice is blunt: if you farm in an area threatened by Southern rust, tar spot or other disease issue, budget as if it’s going to show up this season.
“That application has got to be in your budget, because you can’t service debt if you don’t have bushels,” Hula says.
He also says that he has seen too many growers lose 20 to 60 bushels per acre by not budgeting for a second, later season fungicide application.
Herbicides, by contrast, are where he and Dowdy both see room to tailor and trim. Dowdy talks about moving away from a one‑size‑fits‑all “Cadillac” program and instead aligns his spend in a field with actual weed pressure.
“Maybe, if you’ve been on a Cadillac treatment, go site‑specific… I’m trying to save dollars too, but yet, I know the value of keeping bushels,” Dowdy says.
4. Evaluate How You Manage Field Borders
Hula says his outside passes along tree lines and ditches – where wildlife, compaction and shade detract from yield potential – are no longer treated like prime ground. At the borders of fields, Hula pulls back on planting population and fertilizer, then gradually ramps them up as he moves into the field.
“With technology today, you know that the first pass, the first 40 foot, we just drop population back. The next pass… we raise population a little bit, and then we’ll go to what the field’s geared towards,” he says.
Lime and potash still go on—pH still gets corrected, and basic fertility is maintained—but those border rows aren’t treated like top-producing acres. They’re the logical place to save on high-tech seed costs, Hula adds.
Hear the latest Breaking Barriers With R&D to learn more about Hula and Dowdy’s recommendations at Farm Journal TV and the YouTube link below.
