Renewable Farming

With $10 beans, $35 return for a $3.50 expense — if you have unused insecticide boxes

Thousands of planters have unused dry insecticide hoppers, and consultant Brad Forkner reports that one of his Illinois clients grossed an extra $35 an acre for a $3.25 cost — by metering 11 pounds of dry humate over the row using the insecticide hoppers. Brad used $10 cash beans for that calculation.

October 16, 2020 — Brad sent his clients and friends the yield results in the table below. We snipped out the grower’s name for his privacy. Data show humate-treated beans averaged 79.18 bu. per acre, versus 75.67 bu. for untreated rows on the same soil types.

Brad said, “In many previous years, the dry humate has added 5 to 7 bu. on bean yields. But this season, our August rainfall ranked 118th lowest in 128 years of U.S. Weather Service records.”

(In the table below, the treated result is shown in row 1, the control in row 2.)

That’s only one replication, so there’s no way to measure statistical significance. But it’s another clue that high-quality humic products enhance crop performance, especially when they’re focused near the root zone.

Brad owns Nutrient Management Specialists, LLC, based in Cherry, Illinois.

Brad searched throughout North America for the most effective humate sources. He found a superior source of humic material mined in Alberta, Canada. He describes that search, and an overview of what makes humics work, in a report we published March 14, 2020.

We also recommend that you check out this link to read Brad’s rationale for an aggressive residue digestion program. It’s in a report we published August 10, 2020.

At Renewable Farming, we have excellent residue breakdown products available. Just contact us.