Texas crop update with Peter Hill

Shay: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk with special guest Peter Hill from Texas. How you doing today, Peter?

Peter

Hill: I am awesome, beautiful weather down here so far, thank you for asking.

Shay: Good, glad to hear that. I think it's a little bit warmer down there than probably up here in Illinois. We're looking at some temperatures down into the low 30s here on Friday night. What's it like in your area?

Peter

Hill: Well, we just had a cold front go through, so it makes it a little more comfortable. But prior to that, honestly, we were in the mid-90s for several days. Wow. And that's— we're pretty far along in our crop production. And so it's not the kind of stress we want to have during grain fill and some of that kind of stuff. So it's pretty typical for Central and South Texas to be this warm this time of the year. But like I said, this nice cold front that just went through Puts me in a good mood.

Shay: Well, you just mentioned the area that you're in there. I was wondering if you can maybe just tell us briefly about yourself, what it is that you do, and then we'll jump into what you mentioned there, talking about crop development and progression. So where are you at, and what do you do, Peter?

Peter

Hill: So I live west of Austin, out by a little town called Dripping Springs, and I am a field agronomist for Pioneer Hybrids. Great. So I, as a field agronomist then, I cover most of the eastern half of Texas, basically going from that Dallas-Fort Worth area all the way down to the Rio Grande Valley.

Shay: And how long have you been doing this, Peter?

Peter

Hill: Well, I've been with Pioneer for a little over 10 years, but I've been in the seed business for a little over 20, 21 years now. Wow.

Shay: Wow, that's great.

Peter

Hill: Yeah, my training— I grew up in Indiana, so not too far from y'all. Yep. And studied at Purdue University, so I have a PhD from the Department of Agronomy there. So pretty proud of that. And traveled quite a bit throughout the Corn Belt region and all over the Great Plains region. So I'm just blessed, Shea, and love what I do.

Shay: Oh, that's fantastic. And can you tell us a little bit about what crops are you working with in that area? I'm sure you have an area of focus. What crops do you see in that region?

Peter

Hill: Right. So we are primarily cotton, corn, and sorghum. Almost all of it in rows, of course. And some areas— we'll probably talk about this in a little bit— some areas will have irrigation. But by and large, most of it is dry land. Cotton really is the king down here. And so corn and sorghum. Occasionally soybeans will be mentioned. But it's really just too hot and dry for soybeans in this part of the world. But most of my row spacings, believe it or not, are 38 and 40 inches. And then we'll have some guys that'll do 20-inch corn, for example, or 20-inch milo in rotation with cotton. But the wider row spacing really is what's best for cotton. And that's kind of the historical crop in this part of the world. So cotton, corn, and grain sorghum are the primary row crops that we have.

And of course, there's a lot of—— you know, a lot of cattle, you know, cow-calf and all that kind of thing down here as well. So it's a very, very diverse region of the state. If I were to take you to the Rio Grande Valley, then you get into citrus, lots of what I call truck crops, where you get into cabbage, onions, sesame. There's a lot of sugarcane in the valley. It's a very diverse region down there.

Shay: Right, very, very easy environment to be in. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, you mentioned that row spacing. The further north we get up here, we're pretty consistently talking 30-inch rows on corn and beans, lots of 15-inch rows in soybeans, and then you see producers playing with twin rows and tight spacing and high populations. What kind of challenges does the 38- and 40-inch rows present in your environment? Obviously, there's some benefit with the rotation, but what challenges does that present this time of year?

Peter

Hill: Well, the biggest challenge with a 38- or 40-inch row spacing, obviously, is going to be canopy closure. So we struggle to keep those inner rows of the middles covered. And so that just allows for an extremely high temperature within the canopy. And that's probably our most limiting factor in terms of optimal yields for grain production in this part of the world, is the high nighttime temperatures and just the struggle to kind of cool things down. I remind a lot of my growers that corn, in particular, is a cool season grass. So we can get yields just a touch over 200 bushels per acre. But I'm telling you, it takes a lot of rain and some of those cooler evenings to really make that happen. It's just not in the cards for this far south. That's our biggest challenge. So while the wider rows are optimal for cotton, they're really not optimal for corn.

And then sorghum really thrives kind of in multiple row spacing. But again, from a corn production standpoint, that's a big challenge for us is that wide row.

Shay: What kind of populations are you looking at on a per-acre basis with that wide row spacing in both cotton and corn?

Peter

Hill: Yeah, so it kind of depends on where we are in this part of the world. So on some of the more drought-prone lands, like South Texas, like just outside of that Corpus Christi area, you might be looking at anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 plants per acre. If I take you to the upper Gulf Coast, which now you're getting closer to Houston in a much higher rainfall area, then we'll push that 25,000 to 28,000. Down in the valley, then, where we have consistent water available— and most of that is row water, by the way, not pivot, but row water— we'll push 30,000 to 33,000. But even at that, much over 30,000, 31,000, we really don't need that many more plants. It's just when you're out on these wide row spacings, as you've already kind of figured out, you really start crowding plants. And it gets very difficult to get your seed spacing optimal when you're out that wide. Right.

Shay: One last comment that I have on that wide row spacing— up further north, we see lots of COVID crops. There's some operations that are intercropping. Do you see any of that going on in your area?

Peter

Hill: Not really. We can do some double crop. But really what that means for us is a fall crop. And so with the really long growing season, sometimes a little over 300 days, we can actually do some fall corn. So I guess that would be a double crop, but probably not the way you're thinking. Right. So we just have very few people doing cover crops. I think, again, most of that is probably— you can argue whether it's right or wrong, but I think it's around moisture management. Yes. Not letting the COVID crops— because obviously, if you're in a somewhat drought-prone area that gets really hot really fast, you worry about— if you don't have the rainfall, you worry about any kind of COVID whether it's weeds or a desirable species, really taking up and sucking up too much moisture. So I'd like to see more of it, personally, as a field agronomist.

But I think there's something to be said about improving soils, soil health. And I think that's pretty important. In a world that is just so warm and so hot for so long, I think there's value there, but a lot of my growers really struggle from a moisture management standpoint.

Shay: Yeah, I understand that. So shifting gears here a little bit, you know, we are talking kind of throughout the Corn Belt of crop planting progression. I think for the most part you guys are well beyond that. So what are you looking at for crop size right now? How are things looking in your area? What are your thoughts on current conditions?

Peter

Hill: Yeah, this has been a tough year. So last year, just in reference, was an outstanding year. It wasn't too hot. And when I say that, it's all relative, right? So I mean, we were still getting into the upper 80s and low 90s. We just never had very many days over 100. And we had really, really excellent rainfall last year. So we really had some record-setting yields for a lot of growers. And that was so pleasing to see. So then this year— We're just all over the board. We've got drought in South Texas, which is outside of that Corpus area. Literally walked a field yesterday— or not walked a field, but I saw some pictures from a grower that called me and said, what do you think of this corn? And it was tasseled out, Shea. It was barely waist high. And that was just severe drought.

So if I take you to the Valley, where we typically start planting the middle of January, So while y'all are in a deep freeze, we're planting corn in the valley. And that grain is— so from an agronomy standpoint, I would call that R4, R5. So we are well past dent. Yes. Well on our way to black layer on a lot of those acres in the Rio Grande Valley. So again, you plant early. Now that corn, interestingly, is always shorter in height. And that's just a reflection of planting so early, limited daylight. Solar. But we still have really good yield potential. So we can do 175 to 200 on a lot of those acres down there. Then as we move up the coast, so we get to Corpus Christi, and we move up to the Houston area, that can be some really good growing environments. And so we'll have corn that's almost tassel. Some of that's going to be past tassel.

And then if I take you up closer to the Houston area, we'll have corn that's probably V14, V12 to V14. And some of those acres actually will be pushing out a tassel right now. And then if I move to what I call Central Texas, which would be the Waco area, that area was so wet for so long, delayed planting. And so I'll have corn that'll be knee-high on me. I'm 6'4". So we'll be around V10. And we'll have probably most of that corn is probably going to be V12 or something like that. So a lot of nitrogen deficiency shows up in that part of the world as a result of the excess rains. So there's a lot of variability across those fields. And as you would imagine, $3 corn, all the growers are like, well, do I really want to spend any more money on this, especially if it's going to turn off hot and dry?

Shay: So you led right into my next question there. Do you have a good pulse on kind of how basis is throughout the area, or what is the farmer sentiment kind of throughout the region of commodity prices right now, not only in corn but in cotton as well, right?

Peter

Hill: Right. So, you know, corn is just depressing right now, to be blunt. Now, we are a state as a whole, you know, Texas is a net importer of grain. So, and then in my part of the world, different from y'all, we have very few on-farm storage facilities. We— guys just normally let their crops dry in the field. Now, they may have some marketing strategies, of course, but generally we just go straight from the field to a local elevator. And that's a little puzzling sometimes. I, you know, coming from Indiana down here, I'm like, what in the world? You're like, well, it's just— it gets so hot for so long. Of course, our biggest challenge is not— the grain dry down gets away from us, literally. I mean, we can go from 15.5% to 12% in about 2 days. And then oftentimes, unfortunately, because again, you got to get across all the acres, I mean, we'll harvest grain that might be 8% or 9%. So—

Shay: That's hard to even imagine.

Peter

Hill: It really is, of course. A lot of the producers up north. Absolutely. Like I said, when I first moved down here, I'm just like, what in the world are y'all doing? And it's like, well, we don't need to spend the money, right, on drying or anything like that. But I would argue all day long that I think we've had some opportunities more than once to pay for some of this infrastructure. But anyways, so corn is a little bit depressing. Cotton— so we typically see a lot of acreage shift between cotton and corn. So like last year, cotton prices were up significantly, and a lot of growers grew more cotton. And so then this year, coming into planting, the price of cotton was way down, but corn was a little more attractive and economically made more sense. So our corn acres have spiked up significantly this year.

And of course, you know, Texas doesn't drive, you know, really any grain market to speak of. That's something that obviously where all the acres are concentrated is up in your part of the world. Y'all drive that market. We just kind of go along for the ride. And so corn pricing down here— actually, I saw a price last week, Shea. It was $2.98 at a local elevator. And that would be just straight out of the field if you had anything. So marketing strategies are pretty important. Now, what's really got folks interested now is recently China has started buying up a lot of sorghum. And that's really where, if we have the sorghum acres out here and the grain is available, that's really where we could shine. You know, because we can grow some pretty good sorghum crops for dry land. Of course, sorghum's pretty drought tolerant, so that's a pretty viable crop for us.

We can— that's really where we can make a lot of money is when China gets back into the buying, you know, phase of all these trade agreements, if that's going to happen. And then— so where I'm going with this is our basis for sorghum right now is very, very attractive. And now all of a sudden, we're back to excitement around that crop. And frankly, most of that goes to China. I mean, that's where a lot of our sorghum in the United States goes. So that's really a big deal for us.

Shay: So for some of the producers outside of the region that you're in, in that southern United States area, that don't have history or experience with sorghum, You know, tell us a little bit more. Obviously, we know what the crop is, but tell us a little bit more about the differences in production, what considerations operations have to make if they're switching those acres, and then how that kind of falls into not only planting progression, but then harvest and just kind of all the field operations throughout the year.

Peter

Hill: What are some of the differences there? Well, so sorghum, okay, so I think about— so I'm your agronomist here on this call. So, you know, we plant, we start planting corn, we talk about a soil temperature, you know, our around 55 degrees at planting depth, right? And so sorghum, then, really needs to be at about 65 degrees. So, and then cotton is usually around 70 to 75. So cotton is usually the last thing that gets planted down here, because it really does need a much, much warmer soil. So sorghum's kind of in the middle. But sorghum is much more challenging from a production standpoint versus corn. The most obvious reason is we just don't have any traits, at least not the traits we think of, like Roundup Ready, any BT traits. I mean, we get worms in sorghum just like you would in other species. But we don't have any of those traits in sorghum.

Now, we are about to introduce an over-the-top herbicide tolerance for grass control. So that'll be significant. But up to that point— We're doing a lot of Sharpen, Outlook, plus some Atrazine, and then hoping and praying. And some guys will do a lot of row cultivation, trying to keep the grasses out. So it can be a big challenge from a crop production standpoint on sorghum, is trying to keep those fields clean. But yield potential— OK, now here, this is a little bizarre for us. We talk a lot in pounds per acre. So a 10,000-pound milo crop would be just out of this world for most of my acreage down here. So 10,000 pounds, you're looking at about a 170, 180-bushel crop. So most of what we have is usually in that 4,000 to 7,000-pound range. You're looking at about 100 bushels per acre would be a good average yield for sorghum production.

So now you've got to realize, in this part of the world, 100 bushels per acre, whether it's corn or milo, is just a good overall average dryland yield, given the heat and everything that we've already talked about. So now when we get into irrigation and things like that, we get much higher yields. But here's the thing. When you have water available, you're not going to grow sorghum. Right. There's just too much more money available in corn and cotton. Sorghum is always relegated to the areas that are drier than normal, more drought-prone, a little more heat. Most of our hybrids are in that, oh, I'll say 114 to 125-day maturity. Now, as you go up into Kansas and that part of the world where they grow a lot of sorghum, you'll get into much earlier maturities. But down here, much fuller maturities for both corn and milo.

And so, you know, it could be a very viable crop, but again, a little more difficult to manage due to the lack of traits and things like that, biotech and things like that, that have just never come into the business. But, uh—

Shay: So just as a reference for the listeners here on pricing, you mentioned some maybe positive strength, positive action there on pricing with sorghum. What are we looking at for a price there, and how does that stack up against corn?

Peter

Hill: You know, probably right now— well, that's a great question, Shay. So in the past, I mean, we've had price differences of upwards of $2 to $3 more a bushel for sorghum. And that goes back— so somebody's probably going to get on Twitter and say, Peter, you're off on your years, which it was. But we had some huge bases, and just everybody wanted to grow sorghum, because again they were getting almost another $2, $3 a bushel more compared to corn. So we had this huge surge in demand for sorghum, and then it all kind of went away, melted away. And today, though, we're probably upwards of almost another dollar a bushel for the sorghum right now. I'm a little bit out of school here, but that's probably where we are right now, and I think it's only going to go up. Right.

Because once they figure out we don't have nearly the sorghum acres that we've had in the past, I think that you're going to start seeing that price creep up a little bit more. But again, I'm an agronomist, Shea. I'm not your local ag economist there.

Shay: Yeah. Any last thoughts from an agronomic standpoint that you would like the listeners to know, I guess, on sorghum or kind of the discussion on crops in your area?

Peter

Hill: Because we're pretty close to the Gulf of Mexico, and probably one of our biggest challenges agronomically is disease. So you all deal with gray leaf spot and some of that stuff. And down here, northern corn leaf blight and southern rust are probably our two biggest enemies. Northern corn leaf blight can literally survive on very, very little residue. In fact, I did research way back in the day, and less than 5% residue cover was enough of inoculum to cause an epidemic in a field. And so down here, we don't have a whole lot of— and again, it's counterintuitive, but we don't have a whole lot of continuous no-till and things like that. So even at that, we still have severe outbreaks of northern corn leaf blight. And that's probably for all brands of seed down here. That's a big challenge for us.

And then on southern rust, which overwinters pretty deep down in New Mexico and starts making its way north, that's a devastating disease. I don't know if you've ever experienced that in Illinois. Yes, we have. OK. Yeah, so you know what that's like. So we've already confirmed several cases in the Rio Grande Valley. And we're just kind of holding our breath here as we kind of get through grain fill. In the lower Gulf Coast. We're just kind of holding our breath and just hoping it just stays there for a while. But there's been a lot of southerly breeze, a lot of southerly wind direction. And so I'm just kind of going, well, about any day now I'm expecting somebody to send me a picture, either post it on Twitter or send me a text saying, hey, Peter, what is this? Is this what I think it is? And it's like, OK. It's like raise the alarm.

Because southern rust for us is just a— devastating fungus. I mean, it can just kill whole patches of field literally in a few days. So it's kind of a nemesis for us, for sure.

Shay: So you led the conversation right where I was hoping to go on the disease side. How about on the pest side? Any significant pressure that you're seeing this year and/or historically? What are you looking at in that region?

Peter

Hill: We've actually been pretty clean this year. Historically, we have earworms just almost on every acre, every crop. So earworms have a lot of different names. So the introduction of the Viptera trait, then, in corn— that's been in cotton for quite a while. We've had it in corn now for probably a good 4 or 5 years. I don't think y'all have the Viptera trait necessarily in your maturities up north. Maybe you do. I'd have to look.

Shay: We do have some. Yep, we do have some. OK. OK.

Peter

Hill: Yep. So that trait— and I give Syngenta a lot of credit for that trait— that trait is phenomenal in terms of just really controlling almost all of the worm species that get on our ears, the sorghum heads, and sometimes throughout the bolls on cotton. So that's been an amazing trait for us. Almost every seed brand now has incorporated that Viptera trait in their offerings. That's a big deal. So prior to that— Obviously, we would just be spraying quite often based on economic threshold, trying to figure out— trying to keep the grain quality there. Because one of the things we get into down here is aflatoxin. As you'd imagine, with the heat and all that stress during grain fill, keeping that air clean and keeping the worms off is really a big deal, pretty important. That's what we get into now.

So on corn, though, with the Vipera trait, YieldGuard corn bore, the Herculex One traits, and then the rootworm traits, we pretty well can protect that crop from start to finish. And then we've got some pretty impressive seed treatments as well. So we really don't have too many issues on corn. Sorghum, on the other hand, we get into the sugarcane acid, which I'm pretty sure is not an issue for y'all. I realize you don't grow much sorghum up there. So sugarcane aphid came in. That was a pest from another world. That probably goes back 7, 8, 9 years ago. That would just really— it creates all this honeydew on the plant. And it just destroys basically just the leaf tissue of the plant. And you'd have to spray not once, but sometimes twice. And there's only a couple of products, really, that we spray, and they're pretty expensive. So here recently, though, we've lost our sorghum acreage.

And I think the natural enemies have caught up. So we're not having to spray and control the sugarcane aphid quite as much as we have in the past. But that's been a big deal for sorghum. We don't have any of those traits that I talked about. And sometimes grass control is an issue. And it's like, OK, Peter. There's the sugarcane aphid. And frankly, I really don't want to mess with grain sorghum. This is getting to be a real pain. And that's caused a drop in sorghum acreage as well. But we've got the crop protection portfolio there that can take care of that. So those are the challenges. And then in cotton, my god, cotton gets— it seems like it's under pressure from about everything. There's thrips. There's bollworms. There's all kinds of worm species. It's a very intensive crop.

I'm not a cotton specialist, but if you live down here for a while, you'll kind of figure out that that's a very full-season crop. It's much longer than corn. Most of my corn hybrids down here are in that 115 to 120 maturity. Most of my sorghums are kind of in that same maturity range. And then your cotton—— in my opinion, actually, it's a little bit longer than either one of those. So we'll literally, Shea, start planting in February. And those boys, they're managing cotton all the way through October, November. So their crop season, in terms of just demand for your attention and management, I mean, it's a good 10 months out of the year. And then of course, after all that, we're trying to get ready and get ready for starting up planting all over again, January and February. So, right, right. Pretty intense agriculture in this part of the world.

It just, it just makes for some very tired people. Yeah. Love what they do, though.

Shay: Well, and, you know, we, we appreciate the perspective on that. Just looking at the different regions you and I were talking offline here beforehand, that it's just, it's good for people to understand what else is going on out there and— for us as well, our first soybeans and corn are starting to emerge in this area, some of the earlier planted stuff. And so, it's good for producers out there to see the green, but it's also nice when you hop on Twitter or listen to someone else talking about green crops growing. It gives you hope, gives you something to look forward to despite the challenges that we face. And of course, every year is different. You mentioned last year, wet, great conditions through some of your area, and seeing drought this year. I think every year provides new challenges, but new opportunities to overcome as well.

Peter

Hill: Yeah, that's well said. You're renewed almost every year. You spend the winter, quote winter, our winters are pretty warm here, but it doesn't matter. That's your off-season. And I get so excited when we start planting plots and I'm riding planter tractors and stuff like that. I'm like, man, this is awesome. Here we go. We're starting over again. Like you said, there's a lot of hope. And I just love these crops. And I love what these guys are doing. It's just a passion. And it's just so much fun. I know there's a lot of stress out here. I guess that's always— always behind in the back of my mind is just, you've just got to be thankful for what we have. You know, this can only get better. And in the meantime, I just always encourage guys, you know, continue to reach out if you need help. I know a lot of this stuff is not easy. You know, I tell everybody, I don't farm for a living.

I make a living working with farmers, but I don't farm for a living. So I don't pretend for a second to understand all of this. Those pressures are different than what I have in my life. But it's important from an agronomist to support y'all as growers. I mean, if you do well, we do well. So we're all in this— and I hate to say that— we're all in it together. But it's important to me every day that I wake up thinking about what it's going to take to make you successful at what you're doing. I've just been around farmers my whole life, so that's important. Yeah.

Shay: Anything else that you would like to say, Peter, to the producers in your area that may be listening to this or anybody else up here, even northern Corn Belt and up into Canada?

Peter

Hill: Anything else you want to leave us with here? I'm from Indiana. I miss the cold weather, so all I would say is if anybody wants to invite me up in the month of January— And I'll trade you, right? You come on down here, it's 110, you know. But now I just, I just, uh, like I tell my kids— we've got 4 older kids, we're empty nesters at this point— just keep your head up. Just keep your head up and have a goal in mind and keep after it. I, um, I'm glad to see y'all. I know that, you know, we followed the flood. See, that's the thing. Yeah. Not to get long-winded, but we watch all in the north. And obviously to the northwest of you then was all that flooding last year. I don't know if any of that's even a factor in your part of the world. And then you look down here and you say, man, it's just hot down there. I don't know how those folks can handle all that.

But see, we get our hurricanes and tropical storms on occasion. And that's a big deal as well. So it's interesting. To just watch back and forth. I have a lot of Canadian followers on Twitter, and I just love watching them because I marvel at how in 70 days, for example— I know not all of Canada grows corn, but I just marvel at how in 70, 80 days they have more yield than we do in 120 days. And we're just so far apart geographically. So I guess where I'm going with this is I just want everybody to just marvel at the diversity and just how we have so much in common, but yet we're so different. And I love that. And that's the beauty for me about Twitter and all these things that we do in social media is I get to watch people around the world, and I love that. So my mom still resides in north central Indiana, so I get up there on occasion.

And I just, when I'm making that drive, Shay, it's like 17 hours, and I'm just like, I just love it because you just transition from south to north, and then you reverse that course and you come back, and you just marvel. And so where I'm going with this is I just want you to just stay curious. This is what I say to a lot of growers. Just stay curious. Absolutely. Ask those questions. Figure out— because there's a lot of things that y'all do that my folks pick up on. And they'll text and say, what's this guy in Illinois doing? And I'm like, hell, I don't know. Let me investigate, you know. I was like, well, that's cool. And then I like our machinery and stuff. I mean, y'all look at some of the machinery down here and you think, man, those guys are way behind. And on grain production, we're not all that forward thinking.

But on cotton production, wow, some of the technology stuff down here in cotton production is amazing. Right. Because that's what they do best. So I just would just say, look. Just stay curious and really just reach out there and continue to learn. And to me, that's an exciting part of this life.

Shay: That's a great note to end on there, Peter. Thank you so much for the discussion today, the perspective. Where can listeners find you at?

Peter

Hill: Well, so obviously I'm with Pioneer Hybrid, and my email is peter.hill@pioneer.com. On social media, really, I spend most of my time on Twitter. And you can find me there as Texas Agronomo. Yes, great. Texas Agronomo.

Shay: Yeah, and I'll say for everyone listening too, you post a lot of great content. I like the historical throwbacks that you do looking at not only old products, just pulling that history piece and that perspective of where we came from, where we're at, and kind of where we're going. So Peter Hill, thank you so much for the discussion today, and hope to catch up with you later on here this year.

Peter

Hill: It's been a pleasure, Shay. Thanks for having me.

Shay: And thank you everyone for listening. We will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.