Brooks Reid is busy in the combine this month, but not too busy to take a look at the data he’s gathered. By analyzing harvest data, he can start to draw conclusions about how his management decisions helped him put more bushels in the bin.

Catch up with Brooks to hear more about his harvest season!

Brooks Reid isn’t in a hurry for harvest. He’s not worried about his to-do list, though — because his patience is all part of his approach to plant health and helping his crops maximize their yield potential.

Hear from Brooks about his crop management strategy and his thoughts leading up to harvest.

When you’re looking for a bushel increase of around 4 bu/ac, it can be hard to see the difference in counting kernels or scouting fields. But Brooks Reid is still confident that BioPath^® is helping him boost his yield potential.

Join Brooks and special guest Agronomist Chad Becker as they go beneath the surface to find out how BioPath is working for his crop.

Now that Brooks’ crops are safely in the ground, he hit the books, researching how micronutrients like zinc and manganese are important for plant health and, subsequently, how important they are in fighting off disease, weed and insect pressures during the growing season.

“I’ve got pretty healthy corn with minimal insect pressure, which is interesting compared to what I’ve been hearing from some other farmers in my area. I attribute that, possibly, to my change in management practices this year.”

After finding that zinc is closely associated with important plant defense pathways, he decided to increase his zinc application, running the micronutrients in the planter and planning for a midseason pass, which seems to be paying off.

“My replant corn has an excellent stand. It’s coming along really nicely. We got our in-season nitrogen and nutrient pass on. Then, we had moisture that helped get those nutrients into the root zone to help the crop take up those nutrients.”

Brooks also took a few lessons from his wheat crop, which he says is the best he’s ever raised. Because that crop came off early and successfully, Brooks is taking the opportunity to try intercropping with corn.

June kicked off for Brooks Reid with every farmer’s least favorite thing — replanting.

“Thankfully what we replanted came up fast and has a beautiful stand, but it added a little more time to our process.”

About 75% of corn on Reid Farms was planted within three days in early spring, but then 40% of that had to be replanted, which caused other tasks like sidedressing and planting soybeans to be pushed back.

“This season we’ve just had to find what we can do with the weather that we’ve got. One night I planted until I ran out of seed around 4 a.m. I drove back to the shop, kicked back to take a nap and was back at it a few hours later. That was a rough day.”

Early-planted corn sat in the soil and just burned up seed energy, so when it was time to emerge, it struggled. One of Brooks’ BioPath® fields was also a replant field, but Brooks isn’t too discouraged quite yet.

“We were behind schedule getting our sidedress application, but I’ve sidedressed corn late before and it’s late — by my perspective — but it’s not a failure quite yet.”

Tissue tests are promising, showing that nutrients are in good shape despite the less-than-desirable start to their life. Brooks said his eyes are on the growing crops now and no matter how the rest of the season shakes out, he’s sure to learn something.

For Brooks Reid, every growing season is exciting as he looks for new ways to improve how he grows on the farm. This year he is testing BioPath® in a sidedress application. Join him and his assistant, Steven, as they discuss what they hope to see from their trial this year.

Farmers are always watching the weather, but this time of year, Brooks Reid’s eyes are always on the skies — and the ever-changing forecasts.

“We’ve had a lot of warm weather this spring, but we still have some overnight freezing temperatures right now. Cold and wet isn’t a great combination, so we held off on planting earlier this month. And I was surprised that others in the area were doing the same.”

Since Brooks lives close to where the solar eclipse traveled, he’s watching to see if that will impact the weather, because rainstorms seemed to follow the path of the 2017 eclipse.

“Weather is always a concern. We get one shot to get the season kicked off and emergence is really important. If you don’t have good emergence, then you’re gonna struggle.”

In the meantime, Brooks has completed some drainage work on his bottom ground and is in the process of spraying a burndown herbicide on his no-till ground. With that burndown pass, he included micronutrient fertilizer to prime the soil for the microbes so they can get to work.

Brooks Reid is always looking for ways to work with nature to improve his yields. Walking his fields regularly is key in doing that, so he’ll have his “boots on the ground” to learn how BioPath can help.

Keep up to date with Brooks as he navigates Midwest farming challenges and works to raise the best crops possible.

Brooks’ fields have some significant physical obstacles he has to navigate around. For example, he has hill ground with erosion challenges so he has several terraces. In the field where he planted his BioPath trial last year, he had to take long passes in the shape of a horseshoe because it had once been a part of two different farms.

“I chose that field for the trial because there’s a definite difference in the soil biology for each side of the field — one part of the field was only used for pasture, while the other had been continuous soybeans. I thought it would be an interesting comparison.”

While he didn’t see much of a yield bump last year, he did see a difference in the tissue samples between BioPath and the control on both sides of the field. This year, he wants to repeat the BioPath trial to make sure the positive result wasn’t just site-specific from where he pulled the samples. In addition to the in-furrow trial, he also plans to use it in sidedress to see if the warmer soil temperatures boost the biological response.