Back to Basics: Control Costs and Maximize Profits
Department of Agricultural Economics
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06/11/2021
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17
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With: Matt Stockton, Agricultural Economics Specialist; Chuck Burr, Water and Cropping Systems Educator; Julie Peterson, Entomology Specialist; and Sarah Sivits, Cropping Systems Educator (Nebraska Extension)
One of the key factors in increasing profits and maintaining productivity is to make great in season input cost choices. Cost minimization without concern for productivity, and productivity without cost control, can lead to either too little production or higher costs resulting in less-than-optimal profits. Making decisions at the margin is one way to make profit-based choices.
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- [00:00:06.750]Matt Stockton: Good afternoon, and thanks for joining our webinar.
- [00:00:11.250]Matt Stockton: I mass doctrine agricultural economist and extension specialist the University of nebraska Lincoln stationed at the West central research extension that education Center here in North platte nebraska.
- [00:00:22.410]Matt Stockton: Today, as part of a weekly series of webinars produced by the extension farm and ranch management team a complete schedule.
- [00:00:31.080]Matt Stockton: Of the past webinars is at our website farm ul.edu check it out with the growing season off and the running of the producers face a myriad of decisions and choices about production and management.
- [00:00:43.290]Matt Stockton: It is the culmination of these many choices and circumstances that results in this year's productivity and financial outcome, which we all hope, by the way, is going to be really good for everyone.
- [00:00:54.030]Matt Stockton: The webinar today is about some of those choices, one of the key factors and increasing profitability maintaining productivity.
- [00:01:01.140]Matt Stockton: And a focus on productive is is is the fact that some people focus on productivity, without cost control and like this can lead to a disaster.
- [00:01:09.090]Matt Stockton: and cost control without thinking about productivity, can also be a disaster joining me today are three you and our experts, first we have chopper Hello jack.
- [00:01:20.160]Matt Stockton: yeah what you specialize in.
- [00:01:22.320]Chuck Burr: yeah so i'm an extension educator focusing on integrated cropping systems and water management so irrigation management nitrogen management and cropping systems as a whole and West central nebraska.
- [00:01:33.480]Matt Stockton: Thanks Joe appreciate it, we also have a Sarah civets Good afternoon, Sir, what is your focus.
- [00:01:41.310]Sarah Sivits: Thank you ma'am my name is Sarah sevens cropping systems extension educator also in South central nebraska more western part of the state, and I will be focusing on disease management strategies.
- [00:01:54.300]Matt Stockton: And of course we have our home, one of our hometown favorites Julie peterson welcome Julie tell us what you do.
- [00:02:02.160]Julie Peterson: Ah hi I am a extension specialist in entomology and i'm here in North platte at our West central research and extension Center.
- [00:02:11.880]Matt Stockton: Thank you guys, I really appreciate that um and with that we'll start our webinar all right.
- [00:02:20.400]Matt Stockton: I just introduced everybody i'm going to talk about marginal decision analysis chuck's going to talk about water and fertilizer.
- [00:02:27.870]Matt Stockton: sarah's going to talk about corn and soybean diseases and Julie, is going to talk about those situations associated with insects, and this is all during in season okay.
- [00:02:39.240]Matt Stockton: Now, the reason we're going to talk about this is this kind of came up in a discussion, we were talking with box economist and seeing what could we.
- [00:02:47.970]Matt Stockton: Talk about in season that might be helpful to producers and people that are in kop production.
- [00:02:53.400]Matt Stockton: And one of the things that I found out as being one of the taps persons and I don't know if you know what the task program if you don't give us a call or looking on the website, you can find it.
- [00:03:03.240]Matt Stockton: But as a relationship between inputs and cost and productivity, now it seems really kind of basic.
- [00:03:10.290]Matt Stockton: and simple, of course, to me, when I first started I said okay look, the more you pay, the more you should produce well, that seems pretty straightforward well that's what I thought.
- [00:03:20.550]Matt Stockton: And I expected them to be linked, just like that, so this is what I expected this you notice that, on the one side yield so as you goes up.
- [00:03:32.670]Matt Stockton: predicted cost of and water rank so, in other words, they should be kind of.
- [00:03:40.380]Matt Stockton: inversely related so as your as your cost goes up your yields to go up well directly related but so that's what should happen that doesn't always happen, but the rankings so, in other words if you're the best in yield.
- [00:03:53.610]Matt Stockton: You would probably be the highest have the highest cost which be the low would not be a low cost, to be a high cost that's why the 27 versus the number one, so your yield rank is number one you'd expect that you're.
- [00:04:05.670]Matt Stockton: you're predicting costs would be the highest per acre not on a per bushel but on a per acre basis if you put in the lowest number of inputs, you would expect that you would probably have the lowest yield so that's what that's how those two are related now.
- [00:04:21.420]Matt Stockton: i'm, this is what I found, however, and i'll show you the slide in a minute there's a tendency for them to be related but not so much as you would think.
- [00:04:31.650]Matt Stockton: Here, let me show you what i'm talking about this is the actual predicting cost, in other words the yellow line is it this this farm or this.
- [00:04:41.250]Matt Stockton: Individual participant anticipated it wasn't going to be 27th in the cost they had the highest cost, so I was expecting them to have the highest.
- [00:04:51.240]Matt Stockton: yield but it turns out, they didn't they actually had only yield that would support the 24th highest so that means that they cost was higher than their yield rank.
- [00:05:02.040]Matt Stockton: was what we should have what we expected, so now like this farm here number eight look at this, they have the 20th they were the 20th highest cost, and yet they had the fourth.
- [00:05:16.200]Matt Stockton: yield the other words, the fourth lowest yield it was like that you know, there was three other people that have lower yields in them, so their costs did not predict their yield so what's going on here Why are people.
- [00:05:28.410]Matt Stockton: And these are individual teams in taps, why are they so different from what we expected to be given that relationship that.
- [00:05:35.520]Matt Stockton: If they spend more you should produce more and it what it amounts to is the decisions they made during the season, now that doesn't mean it's their fault, because sometimes you make good decisions and things just don't go right.
- [00:05:47.070]Matt Stockton: You know you pick a variety and the variety didn't do like it should have.
- [00:05:50.100]Matt Stockton: Or you do something, you know these things can happen and that shows some of this up here, but the point is.
- [00:05:55.560]Matt Stockton: making good decisions and there is a decisions between what producers make during the same year on the same ground.
- [00:06:02.190]Matt Stockton: Farm the same way during the year and that's what these these people are compared to so it's that's one of the reasons we wanted to talk about making good decisions and cost and that's one of the reasons why it's important to make your decisions now.
- [00:06:15.780]Matt Stockton: let's talk about these decisions, a little bit there's basically two types of decisions, the first of all, you have the High Frequency high so, in other words you have decisions that you make.
- [00:06:27.060]Matt Stockton: All during the season and that you can make different decisions every year it's not like oh.
- [00:06:32.490]Matt Stockton: The second type of decision, which is where I got a spray a fungus I because I have a fungus disease and maybe you do it one time, maybe do it twice, but it's a it's a binary choice, where you'll I either spray or I don't spray.
- [00:06:45.180]Matt Stockton: fertilization and watering or two examples of the other continuous time where i'm always making the decision, so what happens is I start watering and I make another decision to water irrigate.
- [00:06:55.020]Matt Stockton: irrigate irrigate all through the season and so that's a at the end of the season, I put on so much water.
- [00:07:01.890]Matt Stockton: And so every year is going to maybe be a little different because the temperature, the amount of water available the soil and some of the things that happen so it's those decisions like that.
- [00:07:10.770]Matt Stockton: are difficult to make the optimal decision because of your changes and things changes and it's hard to do.
- [00:07:16.920]Matt Stockton: And so, when I when we go back to this chart these are simply based on cost of water and irrigation so basically what we're saying is they didn't meet their expectations, because they didn't either make the right.
- [00:07:31.830]Matt Stockton: irrigation decision or the water or the fertilized decision was a little bit off.
- [00:07:37.650]Matt Stockton: And it could be variety, but those are the only three things that are in there, so that's really kind of think about So how do I make a good decision.
- [00:07:45.030]Matt Stockton: So economist we kind of look at this as a marginal decision, so this is like a curve what we call it production function, and that means, as you put more and more, and this is fertilizer here on the.
- [00:07:57.120]Matt Stockton: On the on the lower axis, but as you put more fertilizer on you would expect to have more yield up to a point.
- [00:08:04.140]Matt Stockton: Where if you put more fertilizer on you don't really get a response and just kind of levels off and that's what this line here is for agronomists kind of look at that, as a level as a.
- [00:08:13.800]Matt Stockton: flat top thing and that's how they they do it we kind of economists, say, well, you keep putting fertilizer on events you're going to burn something.
- [00:08:20.850]Matt Stockton: But anyway, so that's, this is the production but So what does this mean so looking at this information here.
- [00:08:27.480]Matt Stockton: If you take this line and find the top point it's at 197 So if you put all the fertilizer on that needed for the crop and you get the optimum biological yield, you would have 197.
- [00:08:41.880]Matt Stockton: pounds of nitrogen you put on okay so that's what this says so that that would be the biological optimum so How does that differ from the economic optimum.
- [00:08:51.660]Matt Stockton: Well what's interesting as this flattens out this curve, you get a lower and lower response to fertilizer.
- [00:09:01.920]Matt Stockton: Okay, so, in other words down here you put on 25 pounds wow you got quite a bit of response you get like 225 pounds response, but here you come up here and put on 25 pounds.
- [00:09:15.720]Matt Stockton: And you only get like a you know, five or six pounds total so I mean you're not getting as much response, so this is what.
- [00:09:24.060]Matt Stockton: What economists call a marginal situation we're, in other words for everything for the next pound of fertilizer are you getting the bang, for your buck.
- [00:09:32.490]Matt Stockton: And that's what we suggest that you make your decision on and that's what these numbers here about so basically speaking, we found out the economic optimum was were.
- [00:09:42.060]Matt Stockton: In other words, the cost of putting the fertilizer on was paid for by the value returned in production.
- [00:09:49.740]Matt Stockton: And that happened at 180 pounds of nitrogen, so if I go back to this chart and 180 pounds you shouldn't have put on any more than that because putting all this extra fertilizer cost you money well how much.
- [00:10:00.720]Matt Stockton: So at 350 corn because it's related the corn, the value of the fertilizer 40 cents.
- [00:10:06.270]Matt Stockton: It cost you $600 $6 and 80 cents to put on the extra 17 pounds because it's under 97 pounds minus 180 so you got 17 pounds more nitrogen, then you need it, according to this and this chart.
- [00:10:19.650]Matt Stockton: And you increase yield by only nine six bushels well that's valued at $3 and 37 cents per acre and so you got your $6 and 80 cents you got $3 and 43 cents back.
- [00:10:34.080]Matt Stockton: or this much you got back so you lost this much money $3 so my point is whenever you're making a decision of inputs you don't want to put more of the input on then you're getting back.
- [00:10:46.320]Matt Stockton: In return, and that's what this whole example was used to illustrate and that's what, in other words you keep adding an input at some point it's not going to be useful waters, the same way, in other words, you can put so much water on it's great but.
- [00:11:02.340]Matt Stockton: Much of water past that amount you're not getting the bang, for your buck you're not getting it back now Let me illustrate one last thing and i'll finish here.
- [00:11:11.550]Matt Stockton: Is it as corn prices have gone up what does that do to that optimum well we went from 180 285 pounds of nitrogen, so you know as you put more on but you still didn't put on the hundred 97 so what i'm saying here.
- [00:11:26.760]Matt Stockton: you're never going to put this on unless it's absolutely has no cost so your biological optimum as long as there's a cost of the input is always going to be less than the.
- [00:11:40.620]Matt Stockton: What the biological often is going to be more than the economic arguments, so you should be not searching for biological items, you should be looking for economic optimum.
- [00:11:50.760]Matt Stockton: Now there's optimum amount right down here, this is what it is, but basically you should have put on 185 you put on 197 you put two well pounds too much it cost you $4 and 80 cents.
- [00:12:03.030]Matt Stockton: And then you only got $2 and 37 cents back if you only produce that much more corn point four bushels breaker and you lost 237 so.
- [00:12:11.910]Matt Stockton: This is why it's important to think about your inputs and what you're putting on you want to put on enough.
- [00:12:17.310]Matt Stockton: But you don't want to put on some that you just waste now obviously some might be put on for insurance purposes, in other words you're worried that.
- [00:12:24.030]Matt Stockton: It got below the root zone and there's a lot of other factors, you can talk about and think about and that's important, but these decisions, make a big difference and that's exactly what happened here, these decisions that they made.
- [00:12:37.110]Matt Stockton: They put on a certain amount of fertilizer and a certain amount of water and the resulting yield is what they got and this shows that some people.
- [00:12:45.540]Matt Stockton: make different decisions than other people, and you want to be these people that make.
- [00:12:50.430]Matt Stockton: Good decisions and get really close to where you should, in other words what you should get back what you spent at least when you put a input on.
- [00:12:59.610]Matt Stockton: Now that is also true for binary choices, in other words if you're going to spray and our our other panelists are going to talk about it, especially the insects and the disease.
- [00:13:09.060]Matt Stockton: In other words, if you're going to spray or do something treat you need to make sure that what you're going to get back is equal leads to what you paid for in the treatment costs so that's that's that now our next presenter.
- [00:13:22.590]Matt Stockton: is going to be chuck and he's going to talk about fertilization and irrigation glad chuck.
- [00:13:31.980]Chuck Burr: Right.
- [00:13:32.100]Matt Stockton: Let me stop sharing first there you go.
- [00:13:34.590]Chuck Burr: i'll start sharing.
- [00:13:43.230]Chuck Burr: All right, so yes ma'am i'm going to focus more probably on the irrigation or water side of things than the nitrogen but we'll tie that in at the end of the discussion here today.
- [00:13:53.400]Chuck Burr: So I showed this slide here a couple weeks ago when matt and I were on the seminar, and I just wanted to show it again just from a.
- [00:14:02.880]Chuck Burr: impact and cost.
- [00:14:05.610]Chuck Burr: cost impact, I guess, so the optimal amount of irrigation water applied.
- [00:14:12.120]Chuck Burr: This last year would have been in that eight to nine inch range, so we have quite a few participants that are putting on more irrigation water than they really needed.
- [00:14:20.250]Chuck Burr: And that just drives up the cost and we'll we'll talk about what that value or that cost would be for additional inches of water.
- [00:14:27.240]Chuck Burr: Now we got quite a few participants that are putting on significantly less so, they are saving some costs right not pumping the water.
- [00:14:35.100]Chuck Burr: But at these lower levels are really impacting their yield so i'm going to talk a little bit about the tools that we can utilize to make those good decisions so we're we're not impacting our yield significantly and we're also keeping our costs down as much as possible.
- [00:14:49.380]Chuck Burr: So this this census of aggregation survey was done about eight years ago they do it every 10 years, so it should be coming out here in a couple years again.
- [00:14:58.020]Chuck Burr: But this is for the state of nebraska they have 15 almost 16,000 farms respond on the irrigation portion of the survey.
- [00:15:05.670]Chuck Burr: And 100% of the respondents said they were using at least one method of irrigation scheduling and there's different options down here condition of their crop.
- [00:15:15.810]Chuck Burr: That 86% and of course these don't add up, because some people use more than one method of scheduling.
- [00:15:22.500]Chuck Burr: But I want to raise a couple concerns here so condition of the crop and 86% what that tells me is there, waiting until the crop is starting to show maybe some drought stress.
- [00:15:33.690]Chuck Burr: To me that's too late to make that decision we're likely are impacting yield at that point in time, I would rather use another device.
- [00:15:42.810]Chuck Burr: or another scheduling method to do a better job of predicting when the crops going to run out of water, so that we can apply that water before that and not stress the crop 44% feel of the soil, so you know we pull a sample and feel it and get an indication, how much water is there 44%.
- [00:16:01.590]Chuck Burr: I would rather I guess put my money and effort into soil sensing and we'll talk about some tools that are available we're at 23% in nebraska we lead the nation where the best.
- [00:16:12.240]Chuck Burr: We have the most people using swell sensing, but I think that number needs to be much, much closer to 100% and we'll talk about that here in a little bit et is another one at 24% I again, I think that should be closer to 100% I like to use at least a couple different.
- [00:16:31.320]Chuck Burr: pieces of information to make my scheduling decisions, just like I keep everything where it should be.
- [00:16:36.780]Chuck Burr: In the last one i'm going to call them in here is on the neighbors field so 4% of our participants are looking at the neighbors field when they turn on, then they start up their their irrigation system.
- [00:16:47.220]Chuck Burr: A little concern there, I guess, unless they planted the same hybrid and planted on the same date.
- [00:16:55.650]Chuck Burr: and follow the same irrigation scheduling that that's probably not a good scenario to be and.
- [00:17:00.600]Chuck Burr: We need to be monitoring our fields with our soil types are hybrids hybrids do use a different amount of water to get to full maturity.
- [00:17:08.880]Chuck Burr: As much as two to three inches difference depending on which hybrid you plant, so we really need to be monitoring our own fields and see when they need the water and then follow that recommendation.
- [00:17:20.490]Chuck Burr: So here's some different devices here for soil moisture monitoring on the right hand side and again i'm not not selling any of these pieces of.
- [00:17:29.640]Chuck Burr: equipment, I just want to let you know what's available out there some of the simpler or lower cost sensors.
- [00:17:36.480]Chuck Burr: would be you know the watermark sensors on the long white PVC pipes there in the lower left hand corner the picture and you can get handheld meters, you can get data loggers.
- [00:17:46.500]Chuck Burr: to record that information throughout the week and you know you can get set up for easily under $200 per field.
- [00:17:55.170]Chuck Burr: If you're using a handheld meter to go out and read those but yep you got to go to the field you got to record it you write it down and compare what it was for the previous week.
- [00:18:04.590]Chuck Burr: As we move maybe to a little higher tech real time data, you see a list of different companies and, again, this is not an exhaustive list, these are the ones that are participating with us in our taps competition.
- [00:18:15.990]Chuck Burr: But you can spend you know $502,000 per field so, can you really afford those are not we'll talk a little bit about the cost of what it takes to pump water here in a minute.
- [00:18:28.080]Chuck Burr: The other comment, I want to make here before I move on is the last one here on the slide use a soil probe in other parts of the field.
- [00:18:34.680]Chuck Burr: So if we put a set of sensors out whether it's watermarks or capacities probes or whatever that that device is representing a pretty small portion of the field.
- [00:18:44.670]Chuck Burr: And if you picked a good spot hey grey that represents the rest of the field, but how do you really know that.
- [00:18:50.010]Chuck Burr: i'll just give you an example here several years ago, I was working with a producer and we put a set of sensors out there in the field.
- [00:18:56.070]Chuck Burr: And I thought we picked a good spot, and I said, you know you really need to take a soil probe into the other areas of the field, not every week, maybe every couple weeks.
- [00:19:04.680]Chuck Burr: And just see if the soil, water is the same, and the other parts of that field, as it is, where we put her probes.
- [00:19:11.550]Chuck Burr: So I come back several weeks later, and he says chuck he says i'm really concerned because.
- [00:19:16.470]Chuck Burr: I cannot get the soil to dry down where you know what the probes there, he said i've even shut the pivot off a couple times went by those areas without here gating.
- [00:19:24.840]Chuck Burr: And they're just not showing much difference, and so I said well you know what what's the rest of the field do, and you know I told you to go out and check that every couple weeks, and he kind of got this dumb look on his face and I go.
- [00:19:34.890]Chuck Burr: Okay let's grab a probe and we went to the other areas of the field and.
- [00:19:39.090]Chuck Burr: We picked a poor spot, there was a canal that went through the field we were several hundred feet away from the canal, I thought we're in great shape but.
- [00:19:46.170]Chuck Burr: There was obviously water moving out of the canal into the root zone even several hundred feet away that impact and so on West you're there, so the rest of the field was pretty dry.
- [00:19:56.580]Chuck Burr: Fortunately, he had moisture down below I don't think he really hurt his yield but could have been a pretty serious situation if he had only looked at those probes and not looked at the rest of the field so.
- [00:20:05.790]Chuck Burr: I wouldn't really recommend doing that every couple weeks, just to make sure, things are what you think they are.
- [00:20:12.450]Chuck Burr: So that was a soil probe we'll talk a little bit about crop water use data we've got a great website nebraska of water management network, this has been going on at least 15 maybe close to 20 years now.
- [00:20:23.760]Chuck Burr: utilizing et gauges and the watermark soil moisture sensors and you'll see an APP guy there that talks about the information and how to utilize that.
- [00:20:33.540]Chuck Burr: there's also local weather stations that you can place next year field to calculate this crop water use and again that's just that second piece of information, I like to utilize when I schedule irrigation.
- [00:20:44.700]Chuck Burr: So this is an et gauge there's a company out of Colorado that makes these and it's kind of like a reverse rain gauge, so you fill it up at the beginning of the season with distilled water.
- [00:20:54.690]Chuck Burr: And the site gage here is kind of like the reverse re engage, so I would fill it up to the zero point i'd take one of these red.
- [00:21:02.310]Chuck Burr: markers here slide it up to the zero, and then I would come back a week later, so every morning.
- [00:21:08.010]Chuck Burr: Monday morning at nine o'clock I go check this and see how much water has dropped the water level is dropped within this et gauge, and that would represent the water used by a fully irrigated alfalfa crop.
- [00:21:21.930]Chuck Burr: So we're not all irrigating alfalfa but that that's our standard for reference et.
- [00:21:26.700]Chuck Burr: So what you do, then, is you take that two inches you multiply it by a crop coefficient for the stage of growth, where your crops are at.
- [00:21:33.960]Chuck Burr: And i've just got the ones listed for corn here and corns in that four to six least stage and most of the State so we're using you know roughly 20 to 35% of what a fully irrigated alfalfa field with us so for 35%.
- [00:21:47.850]Chuck Burr: I measured two inches for the previous week multiply that by 35% our corn crop when to use 1700s.
- [00:21:55.410]Chuck Burr: And then I utilize that as well, did I get any rainfall, this week, did I irrigate at all, and how much change was there, my soul moisture.
- [00:22:03.870]Chuck Burr: And if those two numbers are kind of bouncing out, then I feel pretty confident.
- [00:22:08.340]Chuck Burr: That i'm doing a good job of scheduling now if things start to get out of whack and I get concerned and maybe to go take a closer look in the field and see what's going on there.
- [00:22:16.710]Chuck Burr: But that's one great source of information and these et gauges, you know range five to 10 miles on these would represent the weather conditions that your crops are experiencing.
- [00:22:28.500]Chuck Burr: Another source of information here on the left is an automated weather station, you can get this information on your phone or web page on your computer again i'm not really selling a brand here just talking about the concepts.
- [00:22:42.090]Chuck Burr: This is, these are nice because they'll tell you, you know how much water, the crop use the previous day or previous week and i'll.
- [00:22:49.140]Chuck Burr: keep track of it for the growing season also typically will give you a projection what the weather conditions are indicating the crop water use will be here in the future.
- [00:22:59.790]Chuck Burr: Another source of information crop watch.eu and al.edu slash gtd sized et I believe i've got it covered up on my screen.
- [00:23:09.450]Chuck Burr: At data so that's another source you and it all has series of weather stations all across the state.
- [00:23:15.690]Chuck Burr: And you may be fortunate to have one in your area and that's free et information growing degree information, so I encourage you to look that up on that webpage and see if you got one close to you, but another great source of.
- [00:23:28.230]Chuck Burr: et information crop water use information to help us make those irrigation decisions.
- [00:23:34.320]Chuck Burr: And the last part of the presentation here, I want to focus a little bit on cost of pumping water.
- [00:23:39.810]Chuck Burr: So it takes a couple pieces of information determine how much energy is being used to lift and pressurize that water as it goes into the irrigation system.
- [00:23:48.510]Chuck Burr: first thing we need to know is the lift here that's the lift with Ellen parentheses so that's as the well as pumping we have what's called a Cone or depression.
- [00:23:57.300]Chuck Burr: So the water level in the well is going to be lower than what the typical static water level would be.
- [00:24:03.180]Chuck Burr: So we're actually lifting water from that point at the bottom of the Cone up to the outlet of the pump and then we're also developing how much discharge gallons per minute.
- [00:24:13.980]Chuck Burr: And then also pressures So those are really the key pieces of information to utilize to calculate what our cost of pumping water is.
- [00:24:24.600]Chuck Burr: If you don't know where your static water level is the Department of natural resources has some well driller logs.
- [00:24:31.830]Chuck Burr: likely from your irrigation well when was put in, and you can go and look in that and see what it was you know 2030 years ago when the world was installed.
- [00:24:40.860]Chuck Burr: You can also have a pump installer come out and they'll open up a whole here on the pump and drop take down here electrical tape and they can.
- [00:24:49.860]Chuck Burr: estimate the year drop down how far down, it is, and then you're left, of course.
- [00:24:55.110]Chuck Burr: That that you have to be a licensed pump installer to do that, you don't want to drop tape down in there and get it sucked up in the pump that's not a good scenario scenario likely have to replace the pump them.
- [00:25:06.150]Chuck Burr: And just every 2.3 feet you lift the water it takes an additional pounds per square inch PSI so that's why we have so many PSI to lift the water, and then we also have to pressurize it to whatever the irrigation system is designed to operate out.
- [00:25:23.460]Chuck Burr: So then i've got a couple resources for you here and i'll share my email at the end of the presentation encourage you to reach out to me if you'd like a copy of this.
- [00:25:31.500]Chuck Burr: Well, we have a trifle brochure on computing the cost of pumping irrigation water and it's pretty simple it's just a chart.
- [00:25:37.950]Chuck Burr: You go down to your lift will just use 150 feet lift as an example and we're going to move over until we get to the correct pressure that we're developing so we're at 60 PSI at the discharge water pump so.
- [00:25:51.390]Chuck Burr: irrigation pump that's that's operating at a normal efficiency not 100% but a normal efficiency should use 2.63 inches or i'm sorry gallons of diesel fuel to lift and pressurize that so that's for one acre inch so every inch you apply on an acre you know it would take it 2.6.
- [00:26:15.240]Chuck Burr: gallons of diesel fuel I checked a little bit ago diesel in this area has $2 and 55 cents, I believe, so you can see, you can get up to $6 pretty quickly in terms of cost.
- [00:26:25.860]Chuck Burr: Now, if you don't have a diesel system we do the calculation, the same way.
- [00:26:30.270]Chuck Burr: The 2.6 and then we multiply it by this multiplication factor, so if you're on electricity you'd multiply that 2.6 times 14.
- [00:26:38.520]Chuck Burr: That converts it to kilowatt hours, then you multiply by what the power company is charging you whether it's six cents or seven cents per kilowatt hour or whatever.
- [00:26:47.100]Chuck Burr: So that's how you can come up with those costs here pretty quickly.
- [00:26:50.670]Chuck Burr: So that's one resource a second resources and excel based spreadsheet and again i'd be very happy to share this with you.
- [00:26:58.080]Chuck Burr: A couple options here if you know the performance rating of your pump you can select that option, so if you've actually had a pump test on your system.
- [00:27:06.540]Chuck Burr: You know what that number is, we can type that in and it'll give you a really good estimate.
- [00:27:11.220]Chuck Burr: Or if you've recorded how much energy and how much water you've pumped the previous year, we can put those numbers in you know the estimated perform performance rating for your system which.
- [00:27:22.380]Chuck Burr: is a great thing to do a great thing to monitor from year to year, make sure you're pumping plan is operating where it should be, and not starting to decline, that might give you some indication of some.
- [00:27:32.940]Chuck Burr: Well issues before they actually happen so you can change the powers or power source or energy source over here diesel electric.
- [00:27:40.890]Chuck Burr: or whatever type in the size of your field, how much water you've pumped gallons per minute all this information and we'll come back and tell you the cost to pump in inch of water here.
- [00:27:51.690]Chuck Burr: You see, where $11 per acre ranch typically in most of nebraska I would say we're in that.
- [00:27:57.960]Chuck Burr: Four to $8 range, where a current prices are now if you get in the southwest part of the state where they're pumping three to 400 foot to water.
- [00:28:07.950]Chuck Burr: Then the price goes up significantly, but this is a great tool to use to so you know what your water's costing you and then like matt said, you can.
- [00:28:16.680]Chuck Burr: use that information to make a decision, especially towards the end of the season Do I need to apply an additional inch of water, am I going to get enough bushels to pay me back that.
- [00:28:28.320]Chuck Burr: So, the last thing I want to finish on and this kind of ties in a nitrogen piece as well is from our taps data matt shared a little bit earlier.
- [00:28:36.360]Chuck Burr: But our farm 26 on our sprinkler corn competition was our most efficient.
- [00:28:41.910]Chuck Burr: They had a yield of 226 bushels so I applied 140 pounds of nitrogen.
- [00:28:47.130]Chuck Burr: In the 8.2 inches of irrigation water so they're agronomic efficiencies how how many bushels did they get per pound of nitrogen they applied was point eight five that's that's pretty good.
- [00:28:58.800]Chuck Burr: irrigation water use efficiency, so how many bushels did they get per inch of water applied 14.7 though that's a pretty good number anytime we're in that 13.
- [00:29:09.210]Chuck Burr: bushels per inch range where we're doing pretty good, but if you look at farm seven they were the least efficient they put on 150 555 bushels so significant yield penalty here with 200 pounds of nitrogen and four inches of water.
- [00:29:25.200]Chuck Burr: So their economic efficiency, they only got a quarter bushel per pound and nitrogen applied and the irrigation water use efficiency was just under 12.
- [00:29:33.390]Chuck Burr: So this to me just shows the point of, we have to keep everything in balance here.
- [00:29:38.910]Chuck Burr: To be this this participant didn't put on enough water shorted the crop and so that made their agronomic or their nitrogen efficiency pretty low.
- [00:29:49.170]Chuck Burr: So it wasn't really the nitrogen is fall, it was not putting on enough irrigation water, so we have to keep everything in balance, so we make the maximum use of the inputs, that we do apply.
- [00:29:59.610]Chuck Burr: And then, just one more slide here our highest yield was just under 295 bushels they put on 225 or 220 pounds of nitrogen and 12 and a half inches of irrigation water.
- [00:30:13.170]Chuck Burr: And again, that most efficient farm was to 26 and I guess the point here is maximum efficiency does not always mean the most profitable or productive.
- [00:30:23.700]Chuck Burr: operation, so we have to keep that in mind if we're if we're shooting for maximum efficiency we're going to be well below.
- [00:30:30.690]Chuck Burr: The the productive and profitable yields, that we should have, and I think we can learn something from both of these participants and how they manage their crop.
- [00:30:39.690]Chuck Burr: As matt mentioned earlier in his presentation about 180 pounds was optimal so we got an extra 40 pounds of nitrogen that probably didn't really need.
- [00:30:48.360]Chuck Burr: In this farming operation, the irrigation amount was in again that eight to 10 inch range, so they put on maybe a couple inches more water than they did.
- [00:30:56.460]Chuck Burr: Then they really needed really can't argue with the yield they have a high yield, but maybe could have done it a little more efficiently.
- [00:31:03.330]Chuck Burr: And then that most efficient farm you know, maybe a little short on nitrogen they could could have used probably another 40 pounds.
- [00:31:09.660]Chuck Burr: And I think that would have boosted their yield as well, and probably made them even more efficient.
- [00:31:14.460]Chuck Burr: In addition to being more profitable and productive so that's the exciting thing about taps to me as we can look back and see how people manage their operations in truly, who was the most efficient, it was the most productive and profitable and how did they get there.
- [00:31:30.000]Chuck Burr: Without all livia just with my name and my email address feel free to reach out to me and i'd be glad to share those resources or, if you have questions for me later on i'll be glad to visit with you about those as well.
- [00:31:45.750]Sarah Sivits: All right, well, thank you chuck i'm going to go ahead and share my screen now, so we can move into the disease management portion about this presentation and hopefully that'll pop up for you.
- [00:31:58.950]Sarah Sivits: So again, my name is Sarah civets i'm going to be talking a little bit about in season disease management decisions and just based on time, we can touch couple of corn and soybean diseases that would be great.
- [00:32:11.790]Sarah Sivits: But when we talk about managing corn and soybean diseases or just diseases in general, because a lot of these things are going to be applicable these principles will be applicable, regardless of the crop that you're growing.
- [00:32:23.520]Sarah Sivits: Is, we need to first and foremost understand how disease actually develops and so, if you've ever been on an extension or an industry presentation, with a plant pathologist in the room.
- [00:32:33.690]Sarah Sivits: you've probably seen this slide before so we want to understand what we call the disease triangle.
- [00:32:39.210]Sarah Sivits: And there are three major legs to disease development, you need to have a very common pathogen, one that is capable of causing infection as susceptible host and the right environmental condition so three legs their.
- [00:32:52.080]Sarah Sivits: pathologist would argue, this is not a triangle it's actually a pyramid because there's a fourth component, that is probably the most critical.
- [00:33:00.570]Sarah Sivits: And it's time all of these components have to come together at the same exact time in order for disease to develop so having.
- [00:33:10.290]Sarah Sivits: That disease triangle, or that disease pyramid is really, really important, we want to understand our field history, so if you recently acquired a piece of ground you're a new renter or you just purchased it.
- [00:33:22.710]Sarah Sivits: Make sure you ask questions and get as much information as possible, because if that field has high levels of inoculating the soil and you're unaware of it.
- [00:33:32.130]Sarah Sivits: it's going to cause a lot of headaches going forward so field history is critical.
- [00:33:37.140]Sarah Sivits: and environmental conditions i'm located in South central nebraska and going and finding that intermediate parts of going from east to west, the climate changes.
- [00:33:47.010]Sarah Sivits: Our elevation changes our irrigation changes and if you're anywhere else you obviously know that your conditions they are going to be different than what we have here so understand your area to fit your needs.
- [00:33:59.340]Sarah Sivits: One thing I want to touch briefly on and Dr peterson is going to talk a little bit more about this, but economic threshold so basically at that point when you can make a management decision.
- [00:34:09.210]Sarah Sivits: that's going to benefit you so it's going to take care of that past and it's going to pay off for you financially hopefully and it's a time when you can decide do I want to do something, or should I hold off and she'll get more into that.
- [00:34:21.870]Sarah Sivits: But for certain diseases, they we don't have a economic thresholds so keep that in mind, there are some that do but there's actually quite a few that do not.
- [00:34:31.740]Sarah Sivits: So there's other considerations that we need to think about time of year, for example, and corn if you're in that late doe early dense stage.
- [00:34:40.950]Sarah Sivits: Probably not going to make much of an impact to go ahead and make a management decision, but if you're really early into the greenfield.
- [00:34:48.300]Sarah Sivits: period for corn or soybeans you might want to make that investment just something to consider crop value we grow a lot of things in this region organic corn seed corn sweet corn and.
- [00:35:01.560]Sarah Sivits: A lot of different variety there, so you have to figure out what's the value of that crop and is it going to pay off if I go ahead and make a management decision again talking about your field history.
- [00:35:11.910]Sarah Sivits: The cost of a treatment via a fungicide or another method resistance issues do I have it in my field so again fields history is important.
- [00:35:21.120]Sarah Sivits: farmer preference and environmental conditions will it work for you, is it not applicable to you.
- [00:35:27.540]Sarah Sivits: that's something that each operation has to sit down and go field by field to decide how I want to approach this to manage these diseases.
- [00:35:35.670]Sarah Sivits: And, once we have decided Okay, I have a disease, I think I want to manage it.
- [00:35:40.800]Sarah Sivits: How do I manage it effectively, and this is not just for diseases but pests, in general, so we really want to focus on an integrated pest management or IP and strategic approach.
- [00:35:51.510]Sarah Sivits: So there's six major steps here, we want to first and foremost identify that past supercritical.
- [00:35:57.750]Sarah Sivits: evaluate the damage and do I actually need to control it consider the options that I have available to me and select the best combination and, most importantly, monitor that over time.
- [00:36:09.780]Sarah Sivits: You may decide that what I did, be a chemical or a cultural practice, such as crop rotation or resident management.
- [00:36:17.580]Sarah Sivits: wasn't the best option so maybe going forward, we want to try a different variety so talking to your seed dealer.
- [00:36:24.510]Sarah Sivits: there's a lot of opportunities out there and I have a lot of organic producers, where i'm at so biological control is also something that is on the table for them in order to help manage these paths.
- [00:36:36.990]Sarah Sivits: So when we're talking about managing diseases oftentimes people want to use a fungicide if that's what works best for your operation that is awesome.
- [00:36:46.830]Sarah Sivits: However, there's some things that we want to consider in here, so when we're talking about using these chemicals when is the best time to apply.
- [00:36:54.300]Sarah Sivits: If that past has an economic threshold okay at that time we decided we're going to go ahead and apply a fungicide that's great.
- [00:37:03.900]Sarah Sivits: But again, some pests don't have an economic threshold so, then we need to consider some other factors in here, including your environment.
- [00:37:11.040]Sarah Sivits: If the environment changes and for some of these diseases, it takes a few days to maybe a couple of weeks to truly see that disease and fella.
- [00:37:20.970]Sarah Sivits: there's a lot that can happen in that amount of time, so if you have a very hot and dry condition and that disease likes it well, you notice in the forecast is going to be more cool and wet.
- [00:37:32.220]Sarah Sivits: You might not need to make an application at that point so definitely look at the forecast going ahead, who makes the application are you the applicator.
- [00:37:41.490]Sarah Sivits: is somebody else doing it is a Co op is it a custom applicator you have to wait out the cost of that application be a custom, or you and also the time.
- [00:37:53.400]Sarah Sivits: You have the opportunity to fit into your schedule when you're going to go spray you might be waiting on the Co op or custom applicator and by that time that they get there.
- [00:38:02.760]Sarah Sivits: The environment may have changed and the disease might not be a problem as much as you think it might have the.
- [00:38:08.730]Sarah Sivits: best products to use, preferably ones that are effective and affordable now there's some areas in here we can talk about so oftentimes we talked about using generic products, so you have active ingredient.
- [00:38:22.650]Sarah Sivits: But sometimes the inner or the the products that you use with it, so the fact is, the average events, the oils.
- [00:38:30.180]Sarah Sivits: Sometimes they're not as strong as what you might find in the brand names, and so you need to talk to whoever your chemical REP is your co OPS, for example.
- [00:38:40.560]Sarah Sivits: to determine what's going to be most appropriate for you, financially and making sure that it's effective to manage that disease.
- [00:38:49.800]Sarah Sivits: factors that increase disease throughout the season.
- [00:38:52.830]Sarah Sivits: So hybrid or variety susceptibility some are more resistant, some are more tolerant previous crop rotations weather patterns we've already talked about how things change field history and time of year time of years really, really important.
- [00:39:07.200]Sarah Sivits: Another thing on here proper identification is key start at the top, with our IP and strategies, a fungicide is not going to control our bacterial diseases.
- [00:39:16.920]Sarah Sivits: And for some crops, you have wide windows for an application and others, you have a very short window, so it just kind of depends on that pathogen and what you're doing.
- [00:39:26.400]Sarah Sivits: And if you don't have a lot of disease pressure out there, an application is probably not going to help you too much so just something to consider.
- [00:39:34.140]Sarah Sivits: Another question I oftentimes get as well, I had a winter a hail event should I spray.
- [00:39:39.840]Sarah Sivits: Typically it's not necessary, so we see a lot of wounding events being beneficial for bacterial diseases, they can't oftentimes get into the plant as easily.
- [00:39:50.100]Sarah Sivits: Again, a fungicide is not going to control a bacterial disease so think about that.
- [00:39:56.730]Sarah Sivits: fungal diseases, they can get into the plant on their own, so creating enzymes getting into stigmata they have a way about them.
- [00:40:03.930]Sarah Sivits: And for some of these they might only be effective at certain stages, so if you have more questions about that I highly encourage you to take a look at this link on crop watch.
- [00:40:15.030]Sarah Sivits: very, very quickly here a couple of examples so for corn southern must have something that we typically see that comes in.
- [00:40:23.010]Sarah Sivits: Mid to late growing season, depending on the year so if it's super hot, and we have good southern wins this one actually will fly off of wind currents and end up into your field potentially.
- [00:40:35.400]Sarah Sivits: This is one that if it does come in early greenville you're probably going to see a lot of sprayers going out for because it's a very aggressive pathogen it likes those warm temperatures so fungicides might be applicable here.
- [00:40:49.500]Sarah Sivits: Common rest, though, is super common out in the field, typically cooler temperatures it's not really one that we manage depending on the crop that is so identification is really critical here one you might be more apt to spray for the other one probably not necessary.
- [00:41:08.760]Sarah Sivits: So i've been here, this is my last example so frog I leave spot, this is one where we typically see it when we have very humid wet conditions around flowering time.
- [00:41:20.280]Sarah Sivits: And, especially if you're under Center pivot irrigation.
- [00:41:23.460]Sarah Sivits: So for this one definitely a variety selection full your fungicides can be applicable here, but this is actually one that does not have an economic.
- [00:41:31.740]Sarah Sivits: threshold to it so producers just kind of look and see well do I want to spray does it look bad enough, based on my field history and the environmental conditions around flowering.
- [00:41:41.670]Sarah Sivits: It also takes about eight to 12 days from the time the spores land on those leaves to the time when you start to see infection.
- [00:41:50.100]Sarah Sivits: A lot can happen during that amount of time and going forward this one, we are.
- [00:41:54.990]Sarah Sivits: very cautious about because we have fungicide resistance that has been confirmed in nebraska and other so i've been growing regions across the United States, so please be cautious about this one and use effective.
- [00:42:07.530]Sarah Sivits: modes of action when managing it with fungicide.
- [00:42:11.160]Sarah Sivits: final thoughts here before I turn it over to Julie every operation is different, you need to see what works best for you determine where you personally can cut costs and be profitable.
- [00:42:19.920]Sarah Sivits: pay attention to your thresholds if they exist for that disease crop value times a year growth stage of that crop if it's too late, probably not worth it.
- [00:42:29.550]Sarah Sivits: and other management decision costs don't be afraid to ask questions, especially if you're talking to your chemical rap or you know other producers around you don't be afraid to try something different.
- [00:42:40.350]Sarah Sivits: And a couple of websites crop Watch and the crop protection network always great resources to have and with That being said, I am going to stop sharing my screen and i'm going to turn it over to Julie.
- [00:42:56.070]Julie Peterson: Alright Thank you so much, Sarah yeah I think this is really great because.
- [00:43:02.910]Julie Peterson: i'll be able to kind of build off of a lot of what sarah's discussed, because we do have quite a few similarities between insecticide usage and insect pests.
- [00:43:15.450]Julie Peterson: With fungicide usage and the diseases as well, so um you know, one of those similarities as that we're also really trying to look at this integrated pest management approach where there's multiple different types of management.
- [00:43:30.660]Julie Peterson: And we want those to really be working together and with each other with this again the goal of decreasing that past population and keeping it below the economic threshold and Sarah did.
- [00:43:46.320]Julie Peterson: showed you this graph here a great introduction for economic threshold and economic injury level so i'm going to be talking a little bit about both of those.
- [00:43:57.420]Julie Peterson: The economic injury level is what you can see in the blue line here, this is really that break even point.
- [00:44:04.950]Julie Peterson: Where the cost of treating for the insect is going to be equal to the amount of damage and yield loss that that insect is causing to your crop.
- [00:44:17.040]Julie Peterson: Now we don't want to wait until we get all the way to that before we treat right, we want to stop the insects.
- [00:44:24.600]Julie Peterson: This red line is showing the insect population, we want to stop that population before it gets to the aisle, which is why we also have this called the economic threshold.
- [00:44:36.390]Julie Peterson: Which is going to be lower, and that gives you kind of enough lag time based on how quickly the insects grow to be able to get to that point make your decision get out there and treat.
- [00:44:50.640]Julie Peterson: So that economic threshold is then kind of determined on how quickly that insect population will grow and get you a chance to get out there and put your treatment out there.
- [00:45:01.710]Julie Peterson: So that et is always going to be lower or smaller than the aim for that reason, so to know that et, we need to know what the aim is first.
- [00:45:13.320]Julie Peterson: And we do have a formula for calculating that and i'm just going to go through what each of these letters mean we're not going to be doing too much math today.
- [00:45:22.830]Julie Peterson: i'm on the top of this fraction is the see this is the cost of controlling the past, and this, of course, is affected by your product choice.
- [00:45:34.470]Julie Peterson: This is affected by your application method, whether you may be, are hiring someone else to do aerial if you're going to do, chemical ization or ground REG, of course, the application method and the product itself or will influence your cost.
- [00:45:51.660]Julie Peterson: Now it's important because this is on the top of the fraction that as that number for the cost increases, that means that the economic injury level will also be getting higher and higher.
- [00:46:05.640]Julie Peterson: Now everything that's going to be on the bottom of the fraction as that value increases the economic injury level is actually going to be getting lower and lower.
- [00:46:15.660]Julie Peterson: So now we move down to the bottom of the fraction the V here is the value of the crop Of course this is crop prices things that can vary things that may not be.
- [00:46:27.120]Julie Peterson: Completely able to predict, but, as I mentioned here, as your value of your crop increases your economic injury level is going to be going down now.
- [00:46:39.510]Julie Peterson: The Ai is the injury per past, so if we were looking at say Western being cut worm or another insect that's like a caterpillar that's feeding on an ear of corn, we would calculate that as the amount of feeding damage that one caterpillar is doing on that year of corn.
- [00:46:59.940]Julie Peterson: We also and then again as this increases as the caterpillar can eat more per caterpillar then that economic injury level needs to be lower and lower.
- [00:47:12.150]Julie Peterson: The D is for damage to the crop from that injury right so How does that amount of feeding actually relate to yield loss.
- [00:47:23.160]Julie Peterson: And we have some interesting studies that we've done that could try to really relate this so this graph is showing feeding damage from the Western corn root worm.
- [00:47:34.590]Julie Peterson: This larva here that's feeding on the roots of corn, and we can understand that relationship better by seeing here that this is the increasing feeding by root worms on the roots of corn.
- [00:47:50.040]Julie Peterson: And then, this is how that relates to percent yield loss so understanding this relationship here know how much feeding damage relates to how much percent yield loss is really important for us to be able to plug in that number.
- [00:48:05.790]Julie Peterson: And again, as the damage from crop injury increases, then that economic injury level will decrease.
- [00:48:14.700]Julie Peterson: And then the last one down here is the effectiveness of your control strategy, so we know that not all insecticides work just you know equally as well, against the past, this is an example of like some.
- [00:48:29.490]Julie Peterson: insecticide trials that we've done with Western being cut worm just showing that there's variation here right some products are going to be controlling the past better than others.
- [00:48:39.720]Julie Peterson: It may be due to resistance issues, it may just be due to you know certain modes of action work well work best against certain insects.
- [00:48:48.630]Julie Peterson: And so, as you are increasing that effectiveness again, that is, lowering the economic entry level.
- [00:48:57.480]Julie Peterson: Now these three areas, these three different numbers over here.
- [00:49:02.190]Julie Peterson: These are things that, like us, as entomologists and researchers and extension people, we can help plug in these numbers right and you may not know, on your own what these numbers actually are.
- [00:49:14.910]Julie Peterson: But what you do have a better sense of is what are your costs that you're going, you know if you go to the Co op and purchase.
- [00:49:23.250]Julie Peterson: Your product and hire someone to apply it you're going to have a better idea of what those costs are.
- [00:49:29.310]Julie Peterson: And you hopefully we'll have some idea about what the value of your crop is going to be as well, and so these two here, I think, are ones that.
- [00:49:37.740]Julie Peterson: You as a producer you're able to maybe have more control in your mind over or more knowledge and your mind over what these are going to be.
- [00:49:47.610]Julie Peterson: And so you can think about that as as your control costs go up your economic thresholds go up as your crop values go up your economic thresholds go down.
- [00:49:59.130]Julie Peterson: So there are some additional considerations thinking about this economic threshold and economic injury Level one is the LIFE stage of the past itself this example is the army cut worm.
- [00:50:11.340]Julie Peterson: We do recommend if people are finding like very large caterpillars that means they're really close to Pew painting to turning into the cocoon in the in the moth.
- [00:50:21.660]Julie Peterson: So if there and then they're going to be done, eating wheat, so if they're really close to being done eating wheat and moving on to the next life stage.
- [00:50:30.960]Julie Peterson: there's not as much point in treating them because they're not going to be feeding much longer so that's a consideration.
- [00:50:38.100]Julie Peterson: The biology of the past itself is really important, and this can relate to that injury number, so this example is a green bug, which is a type of a fed and an English grain aphid so in seedling winter wheat.
- [00:50:53.610]Julie Peterson: We have a threshold of only five Green bugs per plant, but you can actually have up to 30 English graining that's per plant without needing to spray.
- [00:51:03.660]Julie Peterson: And this is because the green bug has a toxic saliva so when it feeds it's actually able to do more, injury to the plants compared to when one green bug is feeding.
- [00:51:17.340]Julie Peterson: So that's why we have this lower threshold there the growth stage of the crop similar to as Sarah mentioned is really important.
- [00:51:26.280]Julie Peterson: mini economic thresholds change, based on the growth stage and the example here is that for spider mites and corn.
- [00:51:34.560]Julie Peterson: After you get to dent and later they're really not influencing that yield as much, and so we don't recommend spraying after then.
- [00:51:43.080]Julie Peterson: We of course have resistance considerations some past and develop resistance to certain pesticides and then sometimes you might actually be making decisions.
- [00:51:53.460]Julie Peterson: about the next year and that could come into play with something like a Western corn route where i'm where you what you're seeing this year for beetle numbers might be influencing the pressure that you have in your field next year.
- [00:52:08.460]Julie Peterson: So I wanted to give a quick example with the Western corn route Western been cut room here this month, she lays eggs and corn, and then the Caliph caterpillar speed on the corn.
- [00:52:19.650]Julie Peterson: Just to show that as management cost is increasing from left to right here, you can see that the economic threshold.
- [00:52:29.280]Julie Peterson: As percent of infested corn plants in the field is increasing and then again here as the crop value is increasing your economic thresholds are decreasing to kind of go back to how those two are affecting your economic thresholds.
- [00:52:47.970]Julie Peterson: um I wanted to talk about the importance of scouting right because.
- [00:52:52.080]Julie Peterson: it's one thing to know what the economic threshold is, but then you also have to know what is actually in your field and how do you know if you're at that economic threshold yet or not.
- [00:53:02.790]Julie Peterson: So scouting is really critical of course there is time and costs associated with scouting it can be your time, you might hire someone else, such as a crop consultant or agronomist.
- [00:53:14.430]Julie Peterson: But we almost always see an economic return on this you're spending some money to scout.
- [00:53:20.490]Julie Peterson: But instead of just saying okay every year i'm going to spray for Western being cutler and on July 20.
- [00:53:26.640]Julie Peterson: You know the scouting and then making that decision based on what you really see in the field.
- [00:53:31.920]Julie Peterson: really does give you that economic return there's also other benefits you're less likely to develop resistance and the insects if you're not just spraying every year, no matter what and you're having less exposure to your farm workers and the environment for these pesticides.
- [00:53:48.540]Julie Peterson: We generally recommend you scout at least once per week, make sure you're going to representative areas of the field, not just right at the edge all the time.
- [00:53:57.600]Julie Peterson: We do have some recommendations for improving this efficiency of scouting and saving some time and money.
- [00:54:04.350]Julie Peterson: So we like to publish information about when we are predicting that pests will be present, so you can know like okay now it's time to go start scouting so we publish these and crop watch.
- [00:54:17.640]Julie Peterson: You can also use passive sampling, such as using a pheromone trap here to help inform you so you're just putting this out and letting it do the work instead of you physically going out constantly to the field.
- [00:54:30.690]Julie Peterson: You can use things like the speed scouting APP which we have for Western being cut worm this can reduce the number of plants, you need to scout and the amount of time, you have to spend scouting.
- [00:54:41.370]Julie Peterson: You may also want to prioritize some of the more vulnerable crop fields that you have like a gun for Western being cut, when we know that they prefer the late.
- [00:54:52.260]Julie Peterson: very late vegetative early tackling stages late world early tassel so you can prioritize those fields in your scouting efforts.
- [00:55:02.400]Julie Peterson: So I wanted to just share some resources with you all, we have the nebraska extension guide for weed disease and insect management.
- [00:55:11.340]Julie Peterson: Nice hefty book here, it has these tables here for not just insecticides, but fungicides herbicides as well.
- [00:55:19.560]Julie Peterson: Where it gives you the product and some unit prices and then cost per acre at like low and high rates of these, and that can help you to get an idea of that see that cost of actually applying.
- [00:55:35.520]Julie Peterson: The Western mean cutler and speed scout APP I mentioned, we have a European corn bore calculations worksheet that similar helps you to you can plug in your crop values and your cost values there.
- [00:55:47.850]Julie Peterson: And then, of course, just crop watch our articles and our tweets and you're welcome to contact me here's my information and.
- [00:55:57.930]Julie Peterson: let's see matt I don't know if you have something to wrap up or we're ready to hopefully take a few questions.
- [00:56:05.910]Matt Stockton: yeah let's let's take some questions I haven't seen anything in the chat how about you Ryan.
- [00:56:12.870]Ryan Evans: Nothing yeah.
- [00:56:14.850]Matt Stockton: Okay, so if there are any questions, this will be a great time we got a people here ready to answer your questions, we got a few minutes.
- [00:56:30.570]Matt Stockton: And while we're waiting or taking a moment I want to thank the panelists for being here and spending the time to prepare their presentations and to be available for help Whenever someone might need it, I also appreciate the.
- [00:56:46.950]Matt Stockton: I thought they were really good presentations and well worthwhile, so I appreciate that as well.
- [00:56:53.790]Matt Stockton: Ryan, are there any questions, then.
- [00:56:57.210]Ryan Evans: not seeing any.
- [00:56:59.010]Matt Stockton: Okay, well, I want to thank everyone.
- [00:57:02.040]Ryan Evans: who came in one question just came in.
- [00:57:05.070]Matt Stockton: Okay.
- [00:57:08.250]Matt Stockton: Okay, so who wants to take a stab at this one, I think they're talking about either herbicides so insecticides, or whatever what what what are you guys Sarah and Julie wanna.
- [00:57:20.670]Julie Peterson: yeah maybe like different different like ads events that would be added in with the the the mode of action, I think, is how i'm going to interpret that um yeah, so I think that that would really be.
- [00:57:35.580]Julie Peterson: trying to get information from those suppliers are from those companies about you know what is that added advantage right because that can increase that that.
- [00:57:48.930]Julie Peterson: That effectiveness of the product, part of the equation right is so you know if you can try to sort of get that information.
- [00:57:57.990]Julie Peterson: either from the companies or you know some of these types of products have been tested by university researchers as well there's, at least for insects there's this nice resource called arthropods management tests.
- [00:58:09.990]Julie Peterson: And those they test, a lot of different insecticide products and additives there.
- [00:58:15.510]Julie Peterson: And so, if you can kind of try to get a sense of you know Okay, without this added product, this might be, you know 85% effective, but with this added product, it might be 95% effective.
- [00:58:27.900]Julie Peterson: And is that going to get that enough is that enough of a change to make it worth buying this extra nix nix shirt additive to my.
- [00:58:38.700]Julie Peterson: What i'm going to spray hopefully That was the right direction.
- [00:58:42.180]Matt Stockton: Well, and it is Julie, but what I would think to as a as a person purchasing this and as an economist here's what I would say Okay, so I had additive X, it gives me 10% more.
- [00:58:55.680]Matt Stockton: So how much is that 10% worth and then was with 10% more control, am I going to get the money back for the attitude.
- [00:59:04.890]Matt Stockton: Or the enhancement that i'm going to purchase and if you're not going to get it back then you have to ask yourself, the question is why am I buying it if i'm not going to get.
- [00:59:14.190]Matt Stockton: The value back in terms of either crop yield or control or whatever it is that my goal is, in other words what's that value to me, whatever that is because.
- [00:59:23.100]Matt Stockton: It can be economic, it can be a static there's a lot of things, it could be so that's how you have to look at the decision as far as economically, in other words, so this could happen for fertilizer.
- [00:59:35.490]Matt Stockton: Additives and things things that would can enhance the fertilizer staying in the ground so because you so much more to buy it.
- [00:59:43.200]Matt Stockton: How much more do you expect in return, and if the answer is it doesn't pay for itself, my question to you is, why are you using it okay and and that's a question, you can ask yourself and that's how I look at as an economist any other comments.
- [00:59:59.550]Julie Peterson: So I was just going to maybe encourage folks to also think a little bit about testing testing things on their farms as well.
- [01:00:08.250]Julie Peterson: Like you know you could go the route of if you have something specific that you have a question of like is this going to give me a return or not.
- [01:00:15.900]Julie Peterson: You know, you can work with Laura Thompson and are aren't on farms research network.
- [01:00:21.120]Julie Peterson: To actually set up like strips were like Okay, maybe I use this additive on this strip and this strip but not here, and then you can compare you know the yield and everything or you could do it a little more informally like.
- [01:00:34.950]Julie Peterson: One converse a nice conversation i've had with a grower one since he was telling me well, a company will put you know 10% of their budget into research and development, so i'm going to put 10% of my acres and just trying different things, and so maybe i'll put you know.
- [01:00:53.370]Julie Peterson: A few alternate each past with my sprayer or something like i'll do you know, three three strips with the sprayer that had that additive and then three other strips of my sprayer that didn't on my 10 acre or my 10% of my acreage test area.
- [01:01:08.760]Julie Peterson: I really just like that approach of sort of using a little bit of your farm to kind of try out different things and see if it works for you on your land.
- [01:01:18.750]Absolutely.
- [01:01:21.480]Matt Stockton: Okay, so we got some most companies always say it pays or they wouldn't be selling well yeah the company's gonna say it pays but.
- [01:01:30.390]Matt Stockton: You have to ask him what the what the difference is going to be you can't just, in other words.
- [01:01:36.780]Matt Stockton: You have to believe that you're going to, in other words, whatever you believe, and will you believe it's going to make a difference and then you try it and you find out it doesn't make a difference, then you might consider.
- [01:01:47.910]Matt Stockton: doing something different, in the future, I mean there's that too, and I think that's the experiment idea that that Julia was talking about so um.
- [01:01:58.560]Sarah Sivits: Another thing I wanted to add in there, because he asked a question about fungicides doesn't really pay well, a lot of that's going to be based on your environmental factors that environmental leg of your disease triangle is probably.
- [01:02:10.440]Sarah Sivits: Besides timing, the most critical if I had a crystal ball, that would be great I could tell you exactly what the weather is going to do.
- [01:02:18.900]Sarah Sivits: Unfortunately, we don't that's why you also have to think about well what is my my previous crop history if i'm doing continuous corn and i've had very susceptible hybrids.
- [01:02:31.170]Sarah Sivits: And gases Wolf has a problem well that's a vector of disease, but you get what i'm getting at.
- [01:02:36.690]Sarah Sivits: There are things that I need to look at how much inoculate has built up, I need to look at the history of the field on do I have things that are going on in the soil.
- [01:02:45.000]Sarah Sivits: And I can kind of budget for it but also looking at my seed so there's some of it if you can budget for your seed.
- [01:02:50.820]Sarah Sivits: and looking at resistant varieties some of that budgeting just for you know, do I have to make a fungicide application, but like Julie said you don't want to look at a calendar schedule.
- [01:03:00.210]Sarah Sivits: of every year, I want to apply this fungicide well, you might not need it, and so there is a lot of it you're on the grace of what the environmental conditions look like.
- [01:03:12.960]Matt Stockton: Absolutely any other comments Oh, and the thing about doing something every year like Sarah says, I think every year is different, and you have to take everything.
- [01:03:24.060]Matt Stockton: As it comes, I mean that's that's that's that's the skill and farm management is recognizing the circumstance and applying the right decision at the right time and, hopefully, that this this discussion has been.
- [01:03:36.120]Matt Stockton: You know, not every situation has the same answer so you have to figure things out according to your area your location your particular year all the factors have to be considered and that's the hopefully what we've talked about any other comments from the panel.
- [01:03:54.390]Matt Stockton: Okay, with that, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today recorded this webinar is available at the URL.
- [01:04:04.920]Matt Stockton: Or the it's farmed out ul.edu site there's also past webinars I would suggest you look there if you're interested in some of this stuff there's a lot of stuff there.
- [01:04:16.470]Matt Stockton: there's also stuff on that website, a lot of farm management stuff it's that's the idea of the website it's it's our outreach freakin for the farm management website.
- [01:04:26.760]Matt Stockton: anyways uh please check your emails also if you've signed up and we're on this webinar today was a questionnaire, we are looking for any.
- [01:04:35.520]Matt Stockton: input we'd also like, if you have something that you want to see that you haven't seen make suggestions about what we could possibly share that we had you haven't heard, and I would thank the panel and thank everybody, thank you very much, and have a great day.
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