Southeast Minnesota farmer Brad Nelson typically starts investing in his next corn crop in the fall with an application of dry fertilizer. This past year, he drew a hard line on what to apply. With prices already high and margins tightening, Nelson “pretty well dropped phosphorus (P) out of any field,” spreading it on only a few acres and then walking away from the rest.
A few hundred miles away in eastern Nebraska, fellow corn grower Tim Gregerson was making a similar calculation. Also pulling back on phosphorus, Gregerson decided to further stretch his fertilizer dollars with improved application timing. Using data from his latest grid samples, he plans to sidedress his corn crop in mid- to late June via a Y-drop application.
“Liquid costs more than dry, but we are going to give this crop some liquid P and K,” Gregerson says. “We’re cutting back overall and hoping our application timing is going to help us stretch that fertilizer dollar further.”
This decision will help Gregerson place the fertilizer directly at the root zone, making it available when the corn enters its peak growth and demand phases (V8 to tassel), preventing costly waste through leaching or volatilization.
Farmers Are Quietly Making Moves
The cost-cutting measures adopted by Nelson and Gregerson reflect a broader shift occurring across the Corn Belt. To combat an unsustainable cost structure, many growers are aggressively scaling back application rates, while others abandoned corn in favor of soybeans, which require a significantly less capital investment up front.
“People don’t really talk about their own situation too much, but there’s just no doubt that the dollars aren’t floating around here, like they normally do (for inputs),” Nelson says.
He saw recent, unexpected evidence of this at his Pioneer seed dealer’s facility: pallets of seed corn stacked and sitting in the warehouse.
“I was kind of surprised and asked about it,” Nelson recalls. “They had two guys bring back 350 bags of seed corn because they didn’t buy any fertilizer ahead of time.”
According to a district sales manager Nelson talked with, the warehouse scene was far from isolated. Growers who failed to prepay and lock in lower fertilizer rates over the winter simply could not justify the soaring cost of spring nitrogen, forcing a late-season pivot to soybeans.
The ’27 Season Is Already On Farmers’ Minds
With the current crop year already proving difficult, both Gregerson and Nelson are expressing concern over what lies ahead. A primary anxiety is the looming collision between high retail input costs and a depressed grain market.
“Anhydrous this spring here was $1,050 to $1,100 a ton,” Nelson says. “What are you going to do come fall when the dealers come asking you for $1,000 for anhydrous and corn is sitting at $4 to $4.50? That is not a recipe for success in any way, shape or form.”
Gregerson notes that the economic pressure on farm families is compounding beyond the field. Macroeconomic factors, including persistent food inflation and the rising cost of everyday consumer goods, are driving up household living expenses at the worst possible time.
“With our inputs up as high as they are, what prices come next year is probably the biggest issue I see,” Gregerson says.
This Is Not Just A Fertilizer Problem
The mandate to trim budgets has extended well beyond fertilizer, forcing growers to re-evaluate their entire crop protection programs, including fungicides and herbicides. Gregerson, who in previous years applied a preventative half-rate of fungicide during his post-emergence herbicide passes to combat a crown rot problem, decided to drop the application entirely this year after seeing no measurable return on investment.
Meanwhile, unpredictable weather has further complicated cost-control efforts. A lack of spring moisture left Gregerson’s pre-emergence herbicides under-activated, meaning weeds went unchecked. He now anticipates needing more post-emergence rescue passes than he had originally budgeted for.
“We were hoping that our pre would work really, really well so that we could limit and not have to post-emerge spray all of our corn and bean fields,” Gregerson says. “It’s going to be a little iffy. We’re hoping there’ll be a handful of fields we can maybe hold back on.”
As the season progresses, both Gregerson and Nelson agree the current economic trajectory is unsustainable for the average family farm, leaving many growers watching the markets with more questions than answers.
To hear the full discussion on crop progress, inputs, and the broader direction of the U.S. agricultural economy, listen to Brad Nelson and Tim Gregerson on this week’s Farmer Forum on AgriTalk with Host Chip Flory, at the link below.
