About This Episode
Jeff Cole, a strategic account manager covering the western half of Indiana up to the Michigan border, gives Shay Foulk a planting picture from late May 2019. Progress swings wildly from farm to farm, from sizable operations under 10 percent of corn planted to others past 50 percent. His best estimate for the region is roughly 30 percent of corn and 10 to 12 percent of soybeans in the ground, with June arriving and the initial prevent plant date close.
Hybrid maturity is the pressure point. The area normally runs 110 to 115-day corn, and Cole says growers spent their early planting windows on the fullest-season hybrids they had. He expects the conversation to reopen in the second week of June, when a 113 or 114-day hybrid may not reach black layer before an average frost date even with modified growing degree units. Northern Indiana had already started shifting to shorter-season hybrids the week before this recording.
Nitrogen is the other variable. With fields planted whenever they dried, pre-plant nitrogen largely did not happen, pushing growers toward sidedress 28 or 32 and, in some cases, running nitrogen through center pivots on far more circles than originally planned as a trial. Cole says missing inputs are the main reason anyone is weighing prevent plant at all. He describes the strongest managers as ignoring neighborhood chatter and deciding field by field on their own numbers.
“Well, it's become clear to me that exceptional managers really are not influenced by other farms or neighboring farms or chatter necessarily. They're razor focused on what's best for not only their farm, but you know, what's best for really even field to field.”
— Jeff Cole
Key Takeaways
Cole pegs his Indiana region at about 30 percent of corn and 10 to 12 percent of soybeans planted as of late May 2019.
The typical local hybrid range is 110 to 115 day; the second week of June is when he expects growers to reconsider 113 and 114-day corn.
Northern Indiana growers had already begun moving to shorter-season hybrids because full-season corn was unlikely to black layer before frost.
Pre-plant nitrogen mostly went unapplied, shifting growers to sidedress 28 or 32 and, on some farms, nitrogen through center pivots.
Lack of applied inputs is the primary driver behind prevent plant consideration, since fewer sunk costs make the insurance option pencil better.
Ag View Solutions has a prevent plant tool that weighs land cost, insurance, nitrogen already applied, grain price, and yield against the prevent plant payment.
Full Transcript
Shay: Welcome back to Ag View Pitch. This is Shay Foulk with Ag View Solutions. Today we have on special guest Jeff Cole, who is a strategic account manager in Indiana. Can you go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit, Jeff?
Jeff
Cole: Yeah, sure. Hi, Shay. Thanks for having me on. Like you said, I'm a strategic account manager and mostly the western half of Indiana, and then you take like I-70 north to the Michigan border is where most of my travels take me.
Shay: Okay, and how's it looking in that area? What are you, you know, percent planted? Obviously, that's a big question that people are asking right now. There's, there's a lot of difference from farm to farm. But what would you say your region is there?
Jeff
Cole: Yeah, that's a very popular question from a lot of places. And so it's something I think about a lot. And it's, it's tough to get our hands around because of the extreme variability in planting windows from area to area and quite frankly front to front that we experience. So there's a lot of folks that are less than— sizable operations that are less than, you know, 10% of their corn planted all the way to 50% plus. So as I do my best to tracking, I peg that most of us are somewhere around that 30% corn planted in that area. And then you look at soybeans, it's somewhere around 10 to 12%.
Shay: Okay, wow, that is, that is a pretty big difference there. Now, with the region that you're in, I would say you're pretty central Corn Belt. What does it look like for your corn hybrids as far as the typical maturity range? Are you, you know, 110 days, somewhere relative in there?
Jeff
Cole: Yeah, that, that's probably the midpoint. I would say actually majority are probably 110 to 115-day maturities. And it's kind of funny how Mother Nature has a way of teaching us who's boss. We really had a great growing season last year for really for for the area, at least ultra full season. So I'm talking 115-day, 120-day stuff that we really jumped into that, you know, in some places more than we ever have before. And I would say that's probably peaked in 2019 because certainly some of those hybrids aren't as popular as we're staring at June in the face. So there's a, fair amount of what I would call mid-season varieties as well, that 105 to 110 day typically. Now, okay, that could all change here shortly.
Shay: And, you know, talking about that change coming up with prevent plant date on corn right around the corner, or the initial date at least, and looking at weather conditions here the next 5 to 7 days, What are you seeing as far as product movement in regards to switching from some of those fuller season hybrids? Are producers changing? Are they kind of sticking with what they have? What are you seeing in your area?
Jeff
Cole: For the most part, um, the farms I work with are holding to the varieties they have. Those few windows they got early on, they were sure to plant the fullest season hybrids., and so there's not a whole lot of that left that they're too concerned with. Now, as we get into probably the second week of June, that's when I think a lot of us will revisit the conversation and consider, hey, is this too much of a risk to hold on to 113-day and plan to, you know, we're going to be up against average frost dates, even with the modified GDUs to black layer. So it's not a certain problem at that point, but it's something that we're going to definitely revisit and see if we needed to switch in maybe some mid-maturity hybrids.
Now, as you get to the kind of extreme north of Indiana, that conversation, you know, started happening last week, and, and we are moving into some shorter season hybrids already. Because we're definitely in what I'd call that, that danger zone of 114-day or 113-day hybrid, you know, is not going to black layer before we likely could see a frost.
Shay: Right. And you've mentioned a few things there, the frost, the black layer. I know producers are thinking about what is this going to look like for drying this corn down. And A lot of people don't like combining corn on Christmas if they can help it. So I know these are important decisions that are being made right now. And talking about that timeline too, it's well known we don't know what Mother Nature is going to do. You alluded to that earlier. So last fall we saw it, a lot of producers were either harvesting late due to the wet conditions, didn't get a lot of nitrogen put on. How is that affecting what's going on here this spring?
Jeff
Cole: Well, at this point, and really probably for even a couple weeks, it's been a full till. If a field's dry enough to plant, that, that's primarily, you know, what they're trying to do. They're not worried about pre-plant nitrogen really at all, so they're shifting to more of a side dress application, you know, liquid 28 or 32. And it's just primarily doing what they can to get something planted.
Shay: Right.
Jeff
Cole: Yeah.
Shay: I've said, I've said it before a couple times, but I think this year is maybe facilitating some, some trial by necessity as far as some of the later season applications, whether that's producers using Y-drops, or you and I were talking earlier about even doing some nitrogen applications. A little bit heavier and at different timing through the irrigation pivots. A lot to think about there.
Jeff
Cole: Yeah, hey, we're going to learn a lot this year, right? So that's a silver lining that we found. On a limited basis, we were planning to do some late nitrogen applications through center pivots on a few farms. That's kind of turned into a maybe we'll do this on quite a few circles.
Shay: So might be, might be the standard operating procedure for 2019.
Jeff
Cole: Yeah, that might be the case. The trial year turns into the full-fledged application year.
Shay: There you go. With this nitrogen issue, and as I mentioned earlier, the prevent plant dates are right around the corner, is that affecting people's decisions in your region for What are they going to do with Prevent Plant if they don't have the products down? How heavily does that weigh into their considerations?
Jeff
Cole: That's a primary driver behind even considering Prevent Plant for the farms that I'm in contact with. I don't think that they would otherwise. They're still confident they can get something planted, whether they have to switch to beans even for late June, but the fact that, you know, they don't have anything down or they have limited inputs, it certainly is forcing them to consider prevent plant on. And again, those are— that's a limited amount of acres that they're in that position that they really are considering prevent plant more so than normal.
Shay: Well, and it does make that decision easier if it comes down to that if, hey, we need to be making this prevent plant decision. If you don't have all that nitrogen on, it sure looks a little bit better on the pocketbooks there. And, and that's different from operation to operation, right? So you said a limited number of acres there. And I think one of the things that producers are starting to get really good about, or getting better about, is looking at the decisions that they're making on their farm. So With Ag View Solutions, the Profit Manager tool that we have, an additional tool that we have sent out to a lot of clients this year, I actually sent 5 or 6 of it out right before this, this call that we're doing here. The, the prevent plant tool that Chris Barron developed looks specifically at the inputs that you have on the field.
So it takes into account what are your land costs, What do you pay for insurance? How much nitrogen do you have down? And it pits that against the prevent plant, right? So the amount of money that you would be receiving through your insurance, looking at the dates, and then it also factors in grain prices, your, your overall yield, and how that affects your bottom line to say, hey, is there an advantage to prevent plant? Or is there not? So if there's anybody that's listening that hasn't reached out to us and said, you know, I'd be interested in taking a look at that, or maybe you thought about it, please reach out to us. We will, we'll send you the tool. And if there's any way that we can help your farms, you know, we'll go over that a little bit more. But to bring it back around, I think this ties into my next question.
How are the best producers dealing with this situation, you know, outshining others right now? What are they doing differently that sets them apart?
Jeff
Cole: Well, it's become clear to me that exceptional managers really are not influenced by other farms or neighboring farms or chatter necessarily. They're razor focused on what's best for not only their farm, but you know, what's best for really even field to field. Quite impressive because there is a lot of chatter out there, right? But they're— most of them are extremely good at zeroing in on what is most profitable for their, for their operation. And they're all— they're open-minded to what that answer is. So I've had more questions over crops outside of corn, soybeans, which, you know, doesn't equate to a lot of acres, but it shows that there's— they're looking at other options, and they realize that, hey, we're in uncharted territory, and they need to really be thinking for themselves and not necessarily just following the crowd.
So that's been impressive and humbling from my standpoint to see how sharp a pencil and dedicated to making the right decisions they are.
Shay: Right. They really know their numbers. And I've said it before, they're not looking at the, the next 5 days or the next 5 weeks. They're thinking, how does this affect us 5 months from now? Is this what keeps us profitable 5 years from now? So a lot of important decisions being made out there. If there's any, any piece of optimism or advice that you could kind of give as we close here, Jeff, you know, what do you want producers in your area to hear? And, you know, any of our listeners kind of throughout the Corn Belt, you know, what's your perspective on what's going on right now?
Jeff
Cole: There are so many people working diligently. I know firsthand that within our company, and I know with a lot of providers out around, you know, many different farms, to make this happen, right? So, you know, weeks ago we were, you know, in the war room is how I like to say it, of deciding what are we going to do as far as moving shorter season hybrids to where they are going to be in the right place at the right time and how are we going to manage through that. And I don't mean to just be promoting Pioneer because I'm sure a lot of brands have been doing that too. Really, even roles of responsibilities have, have been blurred because everyone's focused on doing whatever needs to be done to make sure we can help our customers, you know, get the crop in and make adjustments that, that they're, you know, working towards.
So it's really, I think, encouraging to, to know how many people are supporting each farm to, to make it through this really, quite frankly, you know, unprecedented spring.
Shay: There's a whole army out there that supports the agriculture community. And it's not just the people that are involved with the inputs and the marketing and the grain hauling and things like that. You look outside of the community, people that you don't normally hear from that are reaching out and saying, Hey, if there's a farmer in your life, please reach out to them, say, I know you're going through a difficult time, we see what's going on. Others are starting to notice it at this point. And it's really incredible the amount of support that has been flowing in that we've seen on our end here. So great point there. Hey, thanks for being on today, Jeff. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Jeff
Cole: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Shay: Yep. And as always, thanks everyone for listening. Stay safe, and we will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.