CropLife Interview

While fertilizer prices have trended lower in recent months, they remain historically high and a cause for concern as growers close the books on the 2022 crop year.

“Farmers are crunching their numbers, but they can’t forget that when they harvest a crop, they’re taking nutrients off the acre, and those nutrients have to be replaced for the next crop,” says Nathan Barnett, Regional Manager, Ag Technologies, for GreenPoint Ag.
 

As we get into the hot months of summer one thing is for sure, harvest is right around the corner and farmers are getting ready. In cotton country, that often looks like pulling the cotton pickers into the shop and going through general maintenance items such as replacing worn spindles and moisture pads, adjusting doffers and, in general, just making sure the machine is ready to pick as effectively as possible. One area though that is often overlooked is making sure that our systems are setup to collect data accurately, especially on new or new to you machines.

The first seven months of 2022 have evaporated, and mid-South farmers now find themselves within a stone’s throw of harvest season. Gone are the days of relying on time-worn hunches, a can of WD-40, and the Farmer’s Almanac when preparing for the season. In today’s high-tech farming, a pre-harvest checklist for combine set-up and calibration is mandatory for producing the accurate data that will inform next year’s high yields.