Boots In The Field Report

Apr 09 2024 143
Boots In The Field Report Podcast artwork

One of the founding pillars of Crop-Tech Consulting is integrating a systems approach to farming. Crop-Tech is continually adding to their expertise and services. To aid in this process, CTC conducts over 150 test plots every year and works in conjunction with Farm Journal to gather research data on the industry’s equipment, practices, and technology. The Boots in the Field Report features Crop-Tech Consulting agronomist Ken Ferrie. He will keep you up-to-date by describing what he is seeing while in the field. 

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Episode 331: Boots In The Field Report April 9, 2024

Apr 09 2024 6 mins  
With the predicted weather for Central IL, Ken gives a green light for full season beans on ground that is fit and sees a window for a possible green light for corn starting as early as this weekend. Ken fears some growers will grow impatient and work ground too wet to try to dry it out, creating season long compaction, or mud in corn. He also reminds growers not to let covers ahea

Episode 330: Boots In The Field Report March 27, 2024

Mar 27 2024 5 mins  
As growers start to roll on planting early beans, Ken Ferrie walks through considerations for deciding when the right time for your operation is. Planting beans in March doesn’t show a large yield advantage over waiting to plant the first week in April but can provide some advantages for operations that only have the ability to plant one crop at a time, then having some bean plan

Episode 329: Boots In The Field Report March 22, 2024

Mar 22 2024 6 mins  
Ken covers questions about using spring anhydrous strip-till or a Zone Builder when facing the possibility of a dry year. There are options that can make it safer but most of them require water. The drier it is or higher rates of anhydrous make for bigger risks of planting issues.

Episode 328: Boots In The Field Report March 6, 2024

Mar 06 2024 6 mins  
Time spent on planters now can bypass a lot of headaches later and can keep farmers from jumping the gun on doing tillage passes before the ground is fit. A simple test is taking soil right below tillage depth, balling it up in your hand, and see if you can ribbon it. If it ribbons an inch or more, it will be a compaction layer not just a density change you will be putting in. Ken

Episode 327: Boots In The Field Report February 23, 2023

Feb 23 2024 6 mins  
In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie advises growers, if they haven’t gotten their wheat top-dressed, the window to get that on is closing fast.  He comments, if tougher wheat stands are going to corn in case of a winter kill, he would still top-dress it, but if going to beans, might want to hold up on top-dressing. Due to Iowa’s drought conditions, they c

Episode 326: Boots In The Field Report February 13, 2024

Feb 13 2024 8 mins  
In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie answers the question of if freezing and thawing will take out a compaction layer and if it could actually make it worse. He also speaks with University of Tennessee State Specialist Ryan Blair on how the growing season went last year and about the expansiveness of the Extension system throughout Tennessee.

Episode 325: Boots In The Field Report January 25, 2024

Jan 25 2024 6 mins  
In this week’s Boots in the Field Report Ken Ferrie answers some questions coming in from winter meetings: Will a spring or fall horizontal tillage pass put in more of a density layer?, Was it allelopathic toxins in the cereal rye ahead of corn that caused such a yield ding?, Will there be a cap to CI payments per farm operations?

Episode 324: Boots In The Field Report January 5, 2024

Jan 05 2024 8 mins  
In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie answers a question from a Beyond The Basics viewer from Southwest Ontario. The viewer was asking about nitrogen carryover in red clover, where is the best place to reduce nitrogen in the overall nitrogen program when using red clover, and does it pay to use a nitrogen stabilizer in that situation.

Episode 323: Boots In The Field Report December 21, 2023

Dec 21 2023 9 mins  
In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie shares his concern on the December 12th drought map for the “I” states and advises growers to close tile gates, if they haven’t already, to keep what water they have from getting away. He also answers the question from a Beyond the Basics viewer about how deep to pull samples in long term no-till fields. Ken advises that i

Episode 322: Boots In The Field Report December 4, 2023

Dec 04 2023 16 mins  
In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken talks with Jared Bergan about the stats from this year’s hybrid flex plot: hybrids added, operations and locations participating, record for highest and lowest kernels per bushel. Ken also answers a question from a Beyond The Basics viewer about how soil test values can be helpful in hybrid selection and placement.