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Ryan Drozd
Allegan, MIRyan guides the overall financial decisions, but when it’s go-time and he’s in the fields, it all comes together when he sees those on-farm investments in action.
Operation overview :Acres:7,500Crops:soybeansorghumcornTillageMostly tilled; some no-tillWhat Drives Ryan?
While you’d think the grain markets have been a rollercoaster ride, Ryan thrives on the adrenaline rush. He loves seeing how their day-to-day efforts in the field and in managing their operation pay off financially and says it makes it all worthwhile — most of the time.
Fertility Program
Yield maps guide Ryan’s fertility decisions, including:
- Spreading potash after harvest and addressing pH issues with lime (sandy soils pose a challenge for holding calcium)
- Placing N and P in a 2×2 run (2” on side and 2” below seed) and adding micronutrients and biologicals in-furrow
- Applying magnesium in the spring
- Sidedressing N and P in-season or choosing to fertigate in cold weather
THE LATEST ON DROZD FAMILY GRAIN
OFF TO A LATE START
Drozd Family Grain got off to a slow start this harvest season after planting their soybeans later in the spring than usual. Now, Ryan Drozd is keeping a close eye on the yield monitors to see how the crops are performing.
Catch up with Ryan to hear more about his harvest season!
"For as bad as we started, I'd say it's a very fair crop. Hopefully, we just finish out strong and keep the sunshine, so we get some big kernels and make up for some lost kernels."
- Ryan DrozdVisit our Next Farmer:
Dave SchrockWhen farming is in your blood, you just can’t get away from it – even if a new heart is pumping that blood through your veins. Such is the case for Dave, who comes from a long line of farmers, but whose path to full-time farming was full of twists and turns.
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PREVIOUSLY: DROZD FAMILY GRAIN
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SEPTEMBER 2024
READY TO ROLL
Ryan Drozd is waiting for rain and waiting for harvest. Dry conditions ahead of the season kept him busy and increasingly ready to see some harvest results.
Catch up with Ryan and hear more about how he feels ahead of harvest season.
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AUGUST 2024
LATE-SEASON WILDCARDS
Ryan Drozd loves harvest season. The hustle and bustle, the yield data, watching all the hard work come to fruition.
The time leading up to harvest, however, is one of his least favorite times of year.
“I love it when harvest is here. The middle of harvest is awesome, but before harvest is just horrible. We have so much to do and so many things to get ready.”
Heading into harvest, Ryan also isn’t sure what to make of this year’s crop.
“I can’t get a good read on the soybeans at all. They’re really anybody’s guess right now. If it was July, I’d tell you this will be a record crop. But it’s August, and we’re just now putting on pods. Soybeans are the biggest wildcard.”
While the soybean yield remains somewhat of a mystery, Ryan said the BioPath® trial field looks promising.
“One observation we’ve seen in the BioPath fields lately is less deficiencies. That field seems to be holding on to nutrients a little bit better. The BioPath fields are just a little stronger in appearance. We’re definitely seeing some good stuff.”
No matter what the crops look like in the field, there’s only one way to find out how they’ll actually yield. Harvest. And Ryan remains hopeful.
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JULY 2024
HOPING FOR SUNSHINE
With the fury of planting season over, Ryan Drozd feels like he can finally take a breath — and hold it while anxiously awaiting to see if Lake Michigan will share some sunshine with his growing crop.
“So far, we’ve had good sunlight and a good growing season, but with the lake effect, that could change in the blink of an eye. Every day of sunshine is critical especially as we get to post pollination and closer to grain fill.”
But Ryan isn’t worrying about what he can’t control; his eye is on the prize at the end of the season.
See more from Ryan about his season on the latest episode of Frontier Fields!
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JUNE 2024
A GOOD, NOT GREAT START
Rain. Plant. Rain. Plant. Equipment breakdown. Plant. Ryan Drozd said it’s been a start-stop type of season so far.
“We would’ve been done the first week of June if it weren’t for so many stops. But it isn’t all bad because the ground moisture was pretty good at the beginning of the month.”
Even with good moisture, the planting deadline date was ever-looming over the planter.
“In the I states, they can extend planting into the first week of June and it’s going to be about the same as the last week of May. But we don’t really get that luxury because of Lake Michigan.”
Ryan’s goal was to finish planting corn by the first week of June and finish soybeans by mid-June — with as few prevented planting acres as possible.
For the first time in recent history, there’s also been trouble with weed pressure from ragweed, chickweed, lambsquarter and grasses. So not only was the planter racing the clock, but so was the sprayer.
Despite those challenges, Ryan remains optimistic for the season.
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MAY 2024
ADAPTATION IS THE KEY THIS SPRING
For all the planning and prep work that went into Plant ’24, Ryan Drozd and his family have already had to do some dodgeball-style maneuvers this season — dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge again.
“The weather made us change our full dry fertilizer program. We used a lot more variable rate to speed things up on some fields, but we also had to catch up in other ways.”
Financially, Ryan said they had to pick and choose fields that could stand a year without dry fertilizer or identify those fields that could be band-aided with something in the planter at sidedress or come back with a foliar at stand.
“That’s when we rely on products like BioPath® to help us with our efficiencies. We want to see if it can help us get the results we need, because if we can’t dry spread, we have to make sure anything we do to adapt is just as efficient — if not better.”
But for now, Ryan just wants to get into the field to finish planting because rain — and a downed tractor — sidelined them for too long.
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APRIL 2024
With an eye on financials, Ryan wants his inputs to work harder
Located in the snowbelt of Michigan, Ryan Drozd is constantly challenged by wet weather conditions and sandy soils with low PH and CECs. He sees BioPath® as a solution to make the fertilizer he has work harder.
Follow Ryan this season as he tries to overcome these challenges with the power of biologicals.
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March 2024
PURCHASING THE RIGHT INPUTS TO MITIGATE RISK
As the “financial guy” of the farm partnership with his dad and brother, Ryan is focused right now on budgets for the upcoming season. And with the extremes in the industry in grain prices and inputs, he is paying close attention to the details.
“My brother handles a lot of the agronomic decisions on the farm, but I take my experience with the financials and grain marketing, and we sit down together to map out our full crop plan so we can purchase the right inputs.”
<p?Ryan notes that there are a lot of outside influences that can impact any operation that are out of a farmer’s control.</p?
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February 2024
A Challenging Climate
While you think February would be a slower month for a Michigan farm, that’s not the case at Drozd Family Grain. It’s that unique climate that keeps them hopping.
“We’re located 15 miles from Lake Michigan, so everything we do is decided by the lake. We’re further south than most counties in Iowa, but our climate is a mix of Seattle, Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula all in one, while we are trying to grow 110-day corn.”
It’s that challenging climate that makes biologicals like BioPath helpful because they look for any advantage to work with the environment to get the most out of their crop.
“To bring a new product onto the farm, it has to be easy to use and bring consistent yield to pay off financially. While we all have a say in the matter, it still has to receive the green light from a financial and efficiency perspective.”
Mosaic Biosciences™
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