Crop Success in Kansas

SOLOMON, Kan. (DTN) -- Despite some challenges with weed control, Mark Pettijohn harvested some impressive yields on his central Kansas farm this fall.

Pettijohn farms about 3,250 acres, all non-irrigated, about 15 miles east of Salina in central Kansas. His crop mix includes soybeans, milo (grain sorghum), corn, wheat, sunflowers, feed cane (feed sorghum) and other cover crops.

The biggest challenge Pettijohn faced this year was weed control in soybeans, especially the full-season beans.

However, Pettijohn said rainfall during the growing season was 2 inches above average and led to the following favorable yields:

-- Full-season milo will average an estimated 126 bushels per acre (his record was 112 bpa), while double-cropped milo will likely average 115 bpa (record was 80).

-- Full-season corn averaged 147.5 bpa (record is 150), and double-cropped corn, which he hoped to start harvesting later Monday or Tuesday, will likely yield about 100 bpa (record was 79).

-- The doubled-cropped yield for wheat this year was 55.1 bpa (record is 65).

-- Full-season soybeans yielded 40 bpa (record is 65), while double-cropped soybeans came in at about 30 bpa (record is 38).

-- Sunflowers, which are not all harvested yet, yielded about 1,200 pounds per acre (record is 1,658).

Pettijohn began milo harvest ahead of schedule Oct. 21, but said a later-than-normal freeze surprised him by actually making the milo wetter. He expects to finish harvesting his milo this week. The milo, however, was not stressed, incurred no sucker heading and got partially harvested before any freeze.

"This was highly unusual and pleasing since yields, especially on the double-cropped milo, appear to be surpassing record levels for my farm," he said.

One of the obstacles Pettijohn has faced on his milo fields was a small aphid infestation on about 60 acres, but that did not delay harvest. He sprayed for the aphids in August, which seemed to eliminate the problem.

Corn harvest began on schedule Sept. 20, ending "like clockwork a week later," Pettijohn said. Soybean harvest began Oct. 7 and concluded Oct. 20.

He said the soybean harvest started only seven days later than average, "but ended a day or two ahead of normal, surprisingly, because of no rainfall interruptions."

Due to excellent emergence and no planting delays, Pettijohn began sunflower harvesting Nov. 5 and expects to finish almost a month ahead of schedule.

HAPPY WITH HIS CHOICES

Overall, Pettijohn said he was happy with most of the choices he made this season: to spray for aphids on the soybeans, spray for headworms in the milo, and use fungicide on part of the beans and milo crops.

He was also happy with his decision to delay prepaying for any chemicals or fertilizers, since prices have been trending down.

"We continue to be pleased with our move towards fertilizer placement in the ground versus broadcasting or streaming the fertilizer on the ground with a ground sprayer," he said. "Huge dividends were paid by getting the fertilizer in the ground and away from the (no-till) residue tie-up."

WEED BATTLE

Pettijohn said he was less happy with his decision to apply a pre-emergent herbicide ahead of soybeans in the fall versus the spring to control marestail. That fall application did work, but many other weeds still came through, such as kochia, ragweed, fire weed and pig weed. He plans to follow up with a springtime application next April.

Weeds presented a big challenge for Pettijohn.

"Glysophate-resistant weeds killed our profits on soybeans this year," he said. "We did not cut back on inputs this year, because we knew with low prices we would have to produce a lot. We did.

"Margin price killed the profits. We had volume, but not price," he said.

Pettijohn is considering going to a 7.5-inch row spacing on 2016 soybeans and maybe even planting thicker to create a weed-free canopy.

He's hoping a fall weed control program followed by spring pre-emergence products containing residuals will clean up fields early AND hold long enough to limit subsequent post-emergence herbicide applications.

In 2015, he also planted 100 acres of rye as a cover crop ahead of 2016 beans.

"Hopefully, this approach will control the dreaded weed seed that is lying on the ground in the spring," he said.

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR

One of the biggest changes Pettijohn plans to make for next year is to reduce wheat acres, because the prospects for profit are slim. He plans to instead increase his milo and corn acres.

He is also pessimistic on beans. "Soybean weeds are so overwhelming and many weed seeds hit the ground this year," he said. "I think the profit margin will be higher on milo and corn next year, plus our fertilizer methods and use of legume cover crops have boosted our high-nitrogen-need crops of corn and milo."

As far as Pettijohn's no-till, double-cropping and companion cropping methods, next year he plans to either reduce his companion/sunflower mix or air seed his sunflowers, planting them thicker and harvesting them with a draper header. This one change on sunflowers will, in effect, prevent his double-crop decisions from mimicking 2015.

He said he might eliminate double-crop cane next year, as he was unable to sell it as feed this fall for the first time ever.

"That's too bad economically, because it's been a decent cash crop and has the tremendous side effect of snuffing out all weeds. The 2015 double-crop cane was planted with a legume companion crop, grew 10 inches tall and kept all weeds out."

Pettijohn chose not to fertilize the cane because in late June he anticipated that buyers would be rare, so he allowed the feed to rely solely on the legumes for nitrogen.

"It worked," said Pettijohn, "but the cattle market took a hit and feed buyers were, in fact, non-existent."

As for next year's fertilizer applications, Pettijohn said he is doing an on-farm study which will compare strip till with nitrogen versus side-dressing nitrogen with a rolling coulter in four fields. All four fields will be split in half in order to study whether the strip tilling is boosting yields or just the simple fact of the fertilizer being placed in the ground is boosting yields.

He is happy with the liquid fertilizer injection unit (rolling coulter) he purchased this year, and plans on using it more on row crops. He modified it to apply fertilizer in 15-inch rows to use on wheat this winter.

"We are very optimistic this will save money, product and boost production -- all very necessary in 2016," he said.

He added that he bought a strip-till machine this summer because he was optimistic about the benefits of short-term strip tilling to reduce compaction and level the field ruts, in addition to placing fertilizer in the soil. Pettijohn said his goal is to strip-till every acre at least once, a little at a time each year. Then he will reassess to see how often to continue, probably every three years, he estimated.

TOUGH TO MARKET

As for marketing, Pettijohn said it is difficult to do any marketing when all crops pencil out to a loss at current prices.

"It took almost all production to pay the bills in 2015," he said. "All farmers I talk to are tightening their belts and equipment companies are in for a dry spell as well, I've heard."

Pettijohn said he prepaid all his 2016 row-crop seed in October as usual, as the current discounts are too good to overlook. However, he has not prepaid any fertilizer and will soon be fertilizing wheat at falling market prices.

Cheryl Anderson can be reached at cheryl.anderson@dtn.com

(PS/ES/SK/AG/CZ)

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