Farmers Pull Back on Phosphorus

With the current economic outlook, farmers are making noticeable changes to their purchasing and application plans. Ken Ferrie, owner of Crop Tech Consulting, says one of the biggest shifts he's seen this year is in phosphorus management.

“So the guys did pull back on the phosphorus amounts and just trying to control costs. Most of our growers did use a soil test to kind of drive that. They didn't just say, No, I'm not putting anything on. They just pulled back on their farms that had higher values and tried to save some costs. There lot of conversations about trying to trim costs, trying to trim expenses, you know, in today's market, but I would say phosphorus is the one that had the most movement on but the yields were good.

Ferry says phosphorus applications were cut back the most, with growers recognizing they may need to catch up once price is correct. He also offers his outlook on how that could shape decisions heading into the rest of the year.”

“Some talk about changes in crop rotation for next year, but I haven't seen any of that actually play out. We won't know that until the prices finally shake out next spring. But within our customer base, though, they will move left or right, depending on what the market's telling them when comes time to do their cash flows. So there'll be corn on corn; if that works, there'll be beans on beans. That works, but so far, most of it has been moderate, as far as the cost-cutting that I expected we would see this time here.”

Ken Ferrie with Crop Tech Consulting.