Farmers and agricultural companies all over the country are watching very closely for the data that comes from 6 U.S. farms participating in the Pursuit of 300. The Mosaic company’s Road to Higher Yields Farm Tour concluded last week at Hudson farms in Crawfordsville, Indiana where Kurt and Christopher Hudson are incorporating several new practices on a 170 acre Pursuit plot.
Mosaic Senior Agronomist Ron Olson is one of those working with the Hudson’s.
“It’s a campaign where we wanted to expand the conversation about growing high yields,” he told HAT. “We’re not putting the pressure on to say we’re going to grow 300 bushel corn this year because Mother Nature drives that. She really has a big impact, but there are many other factors besides weather that the Hudson’s can manage on this Pursuit of 300 field, those things under their control. And so we wanted to look at how they interact and how they benefit each other and what additional ways we can change those to manage and take advantage of the weather when it’s available.”
Christopher Hudson explained what is unique this year on the plot that has been no-till for about 20 years with a corn and soybean rotation.
“We applied MicroEssentials for an added kick for some of the nutrients that we weren’t necessarily taking advantage of the application prior to planting. Then we also added a fungicide application. Where we normally do fungicide at tassel, we added a fungicide application at V5, V6, right in that area. And in another step to spoon feeding our crop we also applied a foliar nitrogen with our fungicide that’s typically managed at tassel.”
One of the benefits of the program from Hudson’s perspective was the root pit they dug to see how the roots were functioning. He has seen pictures of these pits but never had one in his fields. It provided a look at how the roots are functioning and what the overall health of the plant is, and the report back is the plants are functioning well. Hudson is optimistic about a good corn crop both within the Pursuit plot and throughout his farm.
A major component of the Pursuit project is to communicate what is being tried on the plot and the harvest data this fall. Find all that at the Pursuit farmers’ blogs at Pursuitof300.com.
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