Corn
David and Alice Monk possess a priceless American tale in the heartland based on God, family, and farm—and in that order.
Derek Martin has transformed a 6,000-acre farming operation from an input-guzzling leviathan to a profit-per-acre force.
GrainCoat is a grain marketing tool designed for tracking inventory, and aimed at simple data entry and crop projection for multiple years: inventory, offers, contracts and management in one app.
Randy Dowdy’s soil death is no mystery, insists the Georgia producer, and now a federal inspection report appears to back his claims of soil damage on record-breaking farmland due to pipeline construction.
Pipelines and agriculture are a contentious pair, with a growing number of farmers raising concerns over soil health, drainage issues, and responses from oil and gas companies.
An OSU corn plant just set a world record for the most agricultural data gathered in farming history for a single plant across an entire growing season.
Randy Dowdy says a gas line company is responsible for major topsoil losses on his record-breaking farmland.
Crops don’t wait for irrigation, and now means now when it’s time to water. Solid end-of-season irrigation maintenance goes a long way in preventing problems the following crop year during crunch-time. Before the grip of winter sets in, checks and repairs are vital.
Slugs are an accepted part of the bill for many agriculture operations, but as numbers rise, particularly in the Midwest, producers are reckoning with a new level of damage. A mild slug presence, sheltered by increasing no till acreage, can usher in a wave of replants, major yield loss and expensive bait control.
Numerous companies are pushing for elbow room at the ag data table, but long-term contracts may be cause for pause for many farmers.
The eastern half of the U.S. is plagued by 50 million acres of fragipan soil. Light in color, fragipan often starts at 1’ to 2’ below the surface and roughly averages 2’ to 4’ in thickness.
What Crop Tour years cling tightest to Chip Flory’s memory? Good, bad and unforgettable, Flory knows there is a meticulous method to the madness of Crop Tour.
Frank Forcella has designed a four-row organic grit blaster capable of obliterating weeds.
Meet three farmers who are stepping back from a complete focus on bulk commodities and carving out personal brands to directly connect with consumers.
Smartphone video rolling, a Mississippi farmer was surprised to find a beaver hammering a quarter-acre of soybeans in broad daylight.
Randy Dowdy, Perry Galloway, David Hula, Kevin Matthews and Matt Miles have consistently produced some of the strongest yields in the history of agriculture. The five friends are separated by 1,000 miles of farmland, yet share a belief that today’s competitor may be tomorrow’s helping hand.
In 2014, Nathan Reed fought for financial breath even after skinning inputs one by one. No matter how he shifted the figures, the pencil always pointed to the glaring expense of biotech seed. With an eye on cost control, he began switching portions of his ground to non-GMO production supported by a minimum till cover crop scheme, and the change led to farm-wide profitability.
After an early planting kick-start to the crop season, torrential rains blanketed northeast Arkansas and Missouri Bootheel farmland in late April and early May. The flood disaster raises a tangle of questions about crop insurance, risk and water management.
When Jack Shoup refused to pay late fees to the Iowa Soybean Association on tardy checkoff payments as the first purchaser of grain at Dinsdale Elevator, he drew a straight line in his Reinbeck dirt and prepared for a legal battle.
U.S. agriculture has a tremendous amount of skin at stake in an off-the-radar fight that may impact the future of groundwater regulations at federal, state and private levels.
Rob Sharkey’s Shark Farmer podcast is finding a hungry audience in agriculture and beyond, attracted by the take-no-prisoners attitude of his weekly show.
With alarm bells ringing in multiple states over confirmed PPO-resistant pigweed, is the weed control cavalry expected in soybean fields anytime soon? Bolstered by new technologies, help might be on the way within the next five years.
Waterhemp has piled on genetic muscle and built documented resistance to herbicides from six separate site of action groups in Illinois. Yet, even more alarming are the consequences of stacked resistance in waterhemp. Once resistance begins stacking, what’s the snowball effect of a weed juggernaut?
Two Bootheel farmers with a match of tousled hair, blue eyes and easy manner may be the most unique brother and sister farming operation in the United States.
Dee River Ranch features a whole-farm irrigation system fed by a 110-acre reservoir. Five 150-hp pumps supply water to 18 pivots and one corner unit across 2,800 acres of corn and soybeans. The results since 2011? Corn profits ranging from $144-$1,093 per acre over non-irrigated ground, and soybean profits hovering between $115-215 per acre over non-irrigated ground.
Macronutrients and tissue testing are gospel in many parts of agriculture, but receiving a consistent, positive yield return on foliar-applied nutrients isn’t backed by replicated research, according to University of Arkansas Extension personnel.
Randy Dowdy shattered soybean records in 2016 after a 171.7 bu. per acre yield with a UniSouth Genetics 74A74 variety. Dowdy’s corn was also exceptional, with four separate AgriGold varieties each significantly surpassing the 450 bu. per acre mark. Here’s how he did it.
Z-Trap 1 is an electronic insect trap allowing for remote monitoring of pest problems. The automated process of capturing and counting insects carries the potential for labor savings and greater accuracy of pesticide applications.
A field of weeds can pay better than a field of corn, and costs almost nothing to produce. No inputs, no sweat equity, no management, no harvest, but plenty of profit in a scheme plucking millions from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers. Percy Carroll and a growing number of Texas farmers say a crop insurance racket is hiding in plain sight.
Ducks are a hunter’s sweetest dream, but can be a farmer’s nightmare akin to flying time bombs expelling rapid-fire payloads of resistant weed seed. Wonder where the next pigweed outbreak will come from? Listen for quacks and honks, and look up. Waterfowl may be a significant source of resistant weed spread.