Dr. Kyle Freeman from Mosaic, the world’s largest producer and marketer of finished phosphate and potash products, says the goal is sharing information to help farmers eventually get to 300 bushel per acre corn yields.
“These growers were nominated by their retail suppliers, our customers, as people who are innovative and trying new things on the farm and willing to participate. These are volunteer growers and also more importantly they’re willing to share their experience too; what are they doing, what are they learning, what’s working right on their farm? So what we’ve done is create a digital platform for us to really share all of this information.”
Freeman explains each grower has set aside a 100 acre tract on his farm, “and they’re going to use that as a way for us to put in a real world situation and talk about the pursuit of 300.”
The Pursuit of 300 begins with the 2013 season and those farmers are now doing what all farmers are doing, getting ready for the upcoming season.
“We know that it starts almost immediately after harvest so we’re analyzing what we’ve removed from the field. We’re taking soil samples and looking at the different things that go along with preparing the crop nutrition plan. We’re working with the retailer and the farmer to talk about what genetics they want to put on this farm, what genetics they need, and talking about any of the agronomic practices that may influence these high yields.”
Freeman says from now until spring Mosaic is encouraging soil testing rather than assuming there are extra nutrients left in the soil this year.
“Go ahead and go see what’s still out there and see what’s changed in their field because it was such a strange year, to really get a good estimate of what we want to do,” he told HAT.
The other Pursuit farmers are in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota.[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2012/12/Mosaic-Pursuit-of-300.mp3|titles=Mosaic Pursuit of 300]