So in the last episode of Live From the NCRS, I said I was off on a special fertilizer mission after the Growth Conferences in Atlanta and Denver. I flew to Sioux Falls, SD Thursday night in time for the Friday opening of the Ag Ph.D Field Day up in Baltic. Fortunately most of the set-up work was done the previous day. So here is the LIQUID tent. Again we were fortunate to have the Furniture Row/Farm American #78 NASCAR race car. It was a good draw, besides the opportunity to talk to us about fertilizer.
Wouldn't you love to talk about fertilizer with these guys? Well fortunately plenty of others do. Here we see Jim from the RNMF, SAM Brad, and top-AM's Kevin and Chad.....at your service. (In the LIQUID tradition, there are lots of acronyms here.)
I had been in touch with some of the Hefty folks and heard how dry it was and was expecting the show crops to look not so good. But I was amazed when I got there Friday morning. They all looked great. Both the corn and soybeans were green and tall, with no rain since the middle of June. Well Hefty agronmist Mike explained that there is a good foot of topsoil and then some heavy clay, that in years like this, really helps hold soil moisture. Good thing. Below we see some folks looking at the corn and soybeans that were fertilized with LIQUID. Very impressive.
Wow. Look at the crowd that came down to our tent! They must really love LIQUID.
Or maybe that's where the tour started. Here we see Brian and Darren up on the stage truck to talk about the different show plots. Naturally there were good things said about LIQUID nutrition.
Brian and Darren lead the crowd down the midway, and there was plenty to see. I liked the big flag. It was actually cool and cloudy in the morning, but did heat up later. But it was a nice day for July.
One of the featured guests was the 2011 Miss America, Teresa Scanlan from Western Nebraska. She is from a rural background and talked to the lunch crowd about rural values and silly laws which is why she wants to become a lawyer and maybe a Supreme Court Justice or President.
One of the things they had was a corn wheel where the rows of corn get narrower towards the middle. Here on the edge where the rows are 4 feet apart, the ears are big, and the silks are starting to brown.
At the middle of the wheel where the rows are less than a foot apart the ears are smaller and the silks aren't yet fully emerged. I guess this shows something.
Hefty agronomist Mike spent the day in our tent and visited with many growers that stopped by. He has seen good results with LIQUID and has become an excellent spokesman for its use. He talks to a grower out by the demo plots.
Pat from Furtniture Row/Farm American talks to some big NASCAR fans about the race car.
Finally at the end of the day Brad drove me out to the Blank Slate plots. On the way our we passed corn that was on sandy ground that was burnt up. But the Blank Slate corn must share that clay layer that is keeping it looking good....so far. It has to rain eventually to finish strong.
So that was my day. Now it's back to the NCRS to prepare for our tours coming up in August. I guess we won't have Miss America, but maybe Brian can wear a sash or something. We'll work on it.
