get very large, very fast. Say you average 180 bushels an acre over 400 acres. Even at around $5 a bushel, there’s $360,000 on the line. And input costs – seed, chemicals, fuel – can run $450 an acre, excluding land and machinery costs. So if a crop consultant can save you, say, $20 an acre over 400 acres, that’s $8,000 to a farmer’s bottom line.
that survived, then replanting is not recommended. These fields, however, are at just 40,000 to 50,000, so a decision has to be made. “I hate hail calls,” Bruce shakes his head. “Usually you’re hurried, pressed for time on the decision. It gets emotional.”
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Nowlin had never intended to work with corn and soybeans. In fact, it was a simple twist of fate that landed him in Minnesota. Having graduated from Oklahoma State, he had quickly become a crop expert. He “knew everything” – about peanuts, potatoes, and cotton. Then the simple twist of fate. At a conference for crop analysts, he met a young Minnesota woman – Maggie. She had been going farm to farm in Blue Earth County in 1980 trying to convince farmers she could help them improve their bottom line. “They thought I was the Avon lady,” Maggie jokes. The first few times she walked up a driveway in her leather coat and platform shoes, the farmer would say, “”My wife is in the house.” She ended up having a confrontation with one chemicals dealer upset that she might potentially curtail his business. But ultimately one client showed results, and through the grapevine, others heard about it. Suddenly she needed extra help. Before long, she was offering the peanut consultant work in Minnesota. Nowlin arrived knowing little about soils and climate here, except that winters were cold. Farmers in Oklahoma never used manure on their fragile red soil. But Bruce liked what he found: “Farming is much more profitable here than in Oklahoma. The soil is so forgiving here. It holds so much water. There’s so much nutrient matter already there. The soil is so beautiful here.” Thus the pair developed a mantra: Only put on what you have to. “You can grow fantastic crops with the least amount of input.” That philosophy still can produce a testy relationship with chemicals suppliers. But when farmers see bottom-line results, those “clients trust you. They call before they spend.”
The fact that we’ve had two years demonstrating both ends of the weather spectrum doesn’t change Nowlin’s routine much. From the 15th of May until the Fourth of July, he’s out in his clients’ fields. Each field is given a name or designation, and is then divided into sections. Each section of up to 20 acres will be drilled with 15 different probes. The probe is a 16-inch-long, one-inch diameter hollow cylinder. Each probe collects a soil sample and is keyed to a GPS grid. The samples are sent to a laboratory in Nebraska for analysis. The analysis includes soil type, pH balance, manure and organic matter content, and amounts of phosphorus, potassium, zinc and other minerals. The lab returns an electronic report by August, in time for Nowlin and his client to plan for any necessary fall or spring applications of nutrients. Nowlin makes a specific recommendation for each field. ••••
••••
Nowlin arrived knowing little about soils and climate here, except that winters were cold. Farmers in Oklahoma never used manure on their fragile red soil. But Bruce liked what he found.
Memphis, the golden retriever, bounds up to greet a visitor. Bruce comes out, too, fresh from the shower. He’s been out in the fields most of this day, having arrived home covered in brown dust and flecks of mud. Bruce and his wife, Maggie Jones, live on a lovely old farmstead plunked down amid rolling corn and bean fields eight miles north of Lake Crystal. The corn in the field they call “Maggie’s field,” a quarter-mile southeast of the house, is knee-high by the Fourth of July. That old standard is not really that impressive anymore in the 21st century. But in a year of May snowfall and heavy spring rains that delayed planting, a nice, knee-high stand is satisfying this year. Many fields, especially to the east of Mankato, still had standing water and weak crop emergence. A thunderstorm early this day had left the Nicollet County fields Nowlin had intended to sample too wet, so he had headed west to a client in the Springfield area. Another client in Brown County had suffered hail damage. It was getting late to replant beans, and the farmer wanted an opinion. Nowlin uses University of Minnesota guidelines: if there’s still 75,000 soybean plants per acre
•••• In mid-July and August, Nowlin’s focus shifts to visual observation of soybean fields. He checks plant quality and looks for insects. Soybean aphids are a persistent problem. If he finds more than 250 per plant, he recommends spraying. Even if there are only 150 aphids per plant, he might look at a forecast that’s favorable for aphid
MN Valley Business • august 2013 • 25