BigYield High Yield Soybeans, High Yield Corn, and High Yield Wheat
Kent Kauffman discusses Yield Booster and how it influences crop health.
Listen to Kent Kauffman of the BigYield.us team and Kyle Hill, Ag 1280 Farm Director, each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Ag 1280 KDKD-AM. The segments air at 7:15 am and again at 12:15 pm.
This segment originally aired on June 9, 2017.
Audio Transcription
Kyle: Time once again for the BigYield Spotlight. I’m Kyle Hill, visiting with Kent Kauffman of BigYield.us. Good to be visiting with you.
Kent: Thank you Kyle.
Kyle: Awhile back, we talked about micronutrients and your Yield Booster product. Let’s refresh our listeners on those micronutrients.
Kent: There are seven micronutrients required by all plants. These are Zinc, Manganese, Copper, Iron, Boron, Chlorine, and Molybdenum. (Correction) Six of these seven nutrients are in our Yield Booster product.
Kyle: Of course a deficiency in any one of these can cause some serious issues in crops. Let’s go ahead and throw an example out there – Zinc. How does a Zinc deficiency occur?
Kent: Zinc can be a problem primarily in corn. When a soil has high pH, or if a farmer is running a high Phosphorous rate, or when the soil is very cool and wet like it was this spring, you can see a Zinc deficiency. That is kind of how it arises. These issues – like the cool wet spring – we had our BigYieldCoat Corn +Zn to specifically fight those issues. The farmers that ran that did very well and had a great emergence and stand. When you don’t have that Zinc deficiency, that is where you are going to see it – in stands and emergence. You can also see a deficiency in your leaves. There will be yellow streaks where your chlorophyll should be. It’ll have those yellow streaks and will stunt that leaf growth. You will have stunted, dwarf leaves. That is how you can see if you have that zinc deficiency.
Kyle: Let’s keep this pop quiz going Kent. What’s a micronutrient deficiency in soybeans?
Kent: One of the things that can go wrong in soybeans is they can have a molybdenum deficiency. This really happens when your soil is really acidic – on prairie soils for instance. What happens when they don’t have the molybdenum is they can’t fixate nutrients like nitrogen. Without this nitrogen fixation, you will see the leaves turn a yellow color.
Kyle: Do farmers need to apply a lot of micronutrients?
Kent: They do not. Most micronutrients need to be applied at .002 lbs. / acre up to 1.9 lbs. per acre – such as iron. Most of them are less than a pound, so farmers don’t need a lot. What we do – for instance with our BigYieldCoat and Yield Booster – is we chelate these nutrients. That way you get a much lower usage rate.
Kyle: You’ve mentioned chelation before. Let’s run through that again.
Kent: Yeah, we’re throwing a lot of information out again. Chelation forms a protective coating around the nutrient. It’s kind of like a claw, and it stabilizes the nutrient, whether in storage, tank mixes, or in the soil. This allows the plant to use the nutrient when it needs it and limits the nutrient from washing away in rain, being broken down by other environmental factors like the sun or heat. It’s a wrapping and it delivers a very sweet product to your plant.
Kyle: That product I understand is Yield Booster. Of course you have other products through BigYield. How do farmers apply micronutrients like Yield Booster?
Kent: They can apply our Yield Booster both foliar and in-furrow. When applying in-furrow, the precision placement of an in-furrow system allows the product to be put directly next to the seed. That way the plant will get it when it needs it the most. When applying foliar, it tank mixes with anything you want to tank mix it with. In general with Yield Booster, I would put that in the tank before I put an insecticide or herbicide in. The chelation allows a much lower usage rate, so you can get away with 20% to 30% usage rate of what you would normally need and still get great coverage and reduced cost.
Kyle: If anyone has any questions about Yield Booster or any of the BigYield products you have Kent, how can they get ahold of you?
Kent: They can reach us online at www.BigYield.us. They can call us at 816-773-6096 and they can stop by the research farm on 7 highway, west of Garden City. We will show you our research plots and our products and explain all of the stuff we do and how we can make you a better farmer.
Kyle: Kent Kauffman of BigYield.us once again sharing his perspective on the BigYield Spotlight. Once again it was good to catch up with you.
Kent: Thank you.
