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Four Guiding Principles Every Grower Needs to Know
Welcome to this new blog where we will focus on many things related to production agriculture. Let me first tell you some of the guiding principles that drive my day by day activities, and guide my thought processes. You will see these principles guiding our conversations as I seek to put practical, functional agronomic information into a format that I hope can be helpful to you.
First, I have a passion for Agriculture and God has blessed me with the opportunity to work in Agriculture my whole career. Growing up on a dairy farm, I had to find a way to get out of milking the cows, so I spent as much time as possible out in the fields. Because of my love for the outdoors, I have developed a corny relationship with plants. I love seeing things grow, and I’ve never had a corn plant yell at me! I enjoy walking fields, trying to understand what’s growing on, and seeking to unlock the code to higher yields.
The second guiding principle I go by is, “You can’t save your way into prosperity.”To many times, decisions are made with a focus on “out of pocket” costs, rather than the potential “Return on Investment.” As farmers, we all have a multitude of decisions that we make going into every crop and season, and the financial commitments are significant, yet we must focus on our overall objective; which is to maximize our “Return on Investment.”
The third guiding principle is to remember, almost anything will work somewhere, and nothing works everywhere. Innovation in agriculture is astounding. Nearly every day you can come across something new, or some new way to do something. Sorting through all the things that are thrown at us, takes a determined perspective, and requires us to take the emotion out of the decision-making process. There are lots of really cool things we could purchase and some really great ideas somebody else came up with, but is it right for me? Does it fit into my farming needs? Does it increase performance and profitability?
The fourth guiding principle challenges me daily in my agronomy role. How do you find and remove that largest obstacle to higher yields in your production system? Taking an objective analysis of the most limiting factor, is the quickest way to find success in building higher yields, and the answer will be different for every farm.
This blog is a new venture for me, and I hope you find it helpful. We plan to put out agronomic articles monthly, and may add additional tidbits of information along the way as we uncover interesting things going on while we’re outstanding in your fields! We’ll also assist you with information about the features and benefits of our Power Ag brand of products.
I look forward to having those conversations with you; as together we focus on feeding a hungry world.