Alabama Soybean & Corn Association

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News from NCGA

Corn breaking ground for sustainable biobased industrial feedstocks (Wed, 27 Mar 2024)
At the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference (ABLC) in Washington D.C., the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) once again sponsored and facilitated a special session, outlining the national incentive for biobased chemicals and renewable materials that NCGA, along with Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and other partners have been working on. The panel was moderated by Sarah McKay, NCGA Market Development Director, and participants included John Torres, Director, Federal Government Relations at BIO, Ken Rubin, president, Gross-Wen Technologies, and Manning Feraci, Principal, Playmaker Strategies. The panel highlighted the efforts to date to support industrial biotechnology and develop for a national incentive for biobased products. Rubin also shared Gross-Wen’s technology and his perspective on how this national incentive will benefit a variety of agricultural feedstocks, a key component of the national incentive. McKay emphasized the value and sustainability of corn as an industrial feedstock and how utilizing corn addresses key areas of importance for the public as it relates to industrial biotechnology. Further, the panel had a robust Q&A session with the audience on programs and policies, including a detailed overview of the national incentive for biobased materials and what technologies would qualify. “U.S. corn farmers continue to produce an affordable, high-quality and reliable crop each year,” said McKay. “That crop can be turned into more than just food, feed and fuel. The corn kernel can be utilized in so many ways, which is why we focus on new uses and corn as an industrial feedstock. NCGA is working on this national incentive with partners across the agricultural and biotech industry to help a variety of new technologies overcome barriers to commercialization so they can begin to grind more corn.” NCGA continues work in the new uses and industrial feedstock space through the Consider Corn Challenge, Radicle Challenge, and state and national New Uses Consortium. NCGA also works to accelerate new uses through a partnership with DigestData, continued conversations with government agencies like the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), and engagement with the airline community and technology providers to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) a reality. Learn more about NCGA’s additional new uses programs and efforts at ncga.com/newuses.

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EP. 45 - Meet the Newly-Crowned King of the Corn Yield Contest Nitrogen Management Class, with Nick Preissler and Jim Isermann (Wed, 27 Mar 2024)
Growers who limited their nitrogen application still achieved incredible results. Now entering its 60th year, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Corn Yield Contest is an institution in the agriculture world. Growers from all across the country can compete against one another to see who can coax the most bushels per acre out of their ground, blending tried-and-true techniques with new and emerging practices to maximize their production. Last year, NCGA launched a new pilot class for the contest, the first in its history to limit an input in the hunt for high corn yields. So in this episode of the Cobcast, we're discussing the Nitrogen Management Pilot Class of the Corn Yield Contest with Nick Preissler, the first-ever winner of the class, and Jim Isermann, an agronomist working with the NCGA to design rules for the class. Together we'll discuss the impetus behind the development of the class, the challenges and opportunities it presents and the specific limitations set for nitrogen usage. Nick will share what he learned on his operation in Aurora, Nebraska, and what other growers can take away from his experience. To learn more about the new pilot class, and the Corn Yield Contest in general, visit ncga.com/yieldcontest. Direct Share Link: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/ncga?selected=PDM2784549458 TRANSCRIPT: Jim Isermann You've got thousands of farmers involved with this corn yield contest. It's definitely looked to across the industry as one of the Cadillac programs. Nick Preissler It kind of fit right in line with our goals where we were trying to be as efficient as possible with our nitrogen. We kind of saw it as an opportunity to see what we could do against others. Dusty Weis Hello and welcome to the Cobcast, inside the grind with the National Corn Growers Association. This is where leaders, growers and stakeholders in the corn industry can turn for big picture conversations about the state of the industry and its future. From the fields of the Corn Belt to the D.C. Beltway, we're making sure the growers who feed America have a say in the issues that are important to them, with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture. So make sure you're following the show on your favorite podcast app and sign up for the National Corn Growers Association newsletter at NCGA.com. I'm Dusty Weis, and in this episode, we're going to take a closer look at NCGA’s corn yield contest, about to begin its 60th year. Last year NCGA launched a new pilot class for the contest, the first of its kind in the contest's history to limit an input in the hunt for high corn yields. We'll learn why this class sparked interest among growers last year, what lessons were learned and why it's an important step forward for the contest. And we're joined today by Nick Preissler, a grower from Aurora, Nebraska, and the first ever winner of the corn yield contest nitrogen management pilot class, and Jim Isermann, an agronomist working with NCGA who led the way to design this year's contest. So welcome to the podcast, Nick and Jim. Nick Preissler Yeah, thanks for having us, Dusty. Dusty Weis And of course, Nick, congratulations, first and foremost. Hats off for being the inaugural winner of the contest here. I'm going to quote Simon Sinek to get started here, but I want to start with the why. Jim, what was the impetus behind the development of this class in the contest? Jim Isermann Well, as you've mentioned, the corn yield contest has been very successful, having gone on for 60 years now. That's a very long period of time for something like this to continue and one of the major keys to its success is it's been both fairly simple and fairly consistent over that time frame. It's been all about kind of maximizing your bushels per acre and kind of getting there whichever way you can, within reason, obviously. But when we started to think about kind of next steps for the contest, obviously there's a lot of concerns out there over things such as economics, the environmental impact, sustainability. So looking into something that's been so successful, such as the corn yield contest, that's kind of an avenue for some of those things to be brought to farmers and to be highlighted was a major interest. You've got thousands of farmers involved with this corn yield contest. It's definitely looked to across the industry as kind of one of the Cadillac programs. Lots of information gets highlighted. The farmers who win get highlighted. So it seemed like a really good opportunity. The program itself, the contest has always kind of highlighted the maximum potential for corn where we get to see just, you know, some really huge yields. We get to see what corn can really do when we put all the management, all the inputs to it to kind of give us that top end look at what the potential yield could be, which has been just amazing. I think even this last year, we saw a new record set at 623 bushels, I believe, by David Hula. So that's been just, you know, some huge numbers coming out of the corn yield contest. Dusty Weis David Hula, we should call out, was actually the guest on this podcast a couple of years ago, episode 33. This past victory for David was that his fifth or his sixth? Because when I talked to him two years ago, he'd already won it four times. Jim Isermann Well, I know he's been a perennial winner, so yeah, the name is definitely fairly common out there. When we think about high yielding corn. Dusty Weis Guy is a legend out in Virginia. Absolutely. And one of the oldest farms in America to boot, too. So where did the idea come from then for the new class here, Jim? Jim Isermann I mean, the yields are really impressive, but, you know, coming back to what are some of the real world situations that we're facing, both in the industry as an association. But what are farmers facing? What are farmers asking for and why yield is important. We all know there's more to life than just yield, or the yield needs to be economic. So we talk a lot about ROI. What's our return on the investment or to raising a corn crop? We also need to look at the sustainability of it and we need to look at the environmental impact. So as we thought about what that new challenge could be for growers, we really fell back to that idea of, well, maybe we need to start limiting something to kind of not just concentrate in terms of yield, but bring it down to something where we can really concentrate on the economics and the environment and we really fall back on nitrogen. Nitrogen made a lot of sense as part of that next step. We know that nitrogen is extremely important in raising a corn crop. We know that we can elevate yields by applying nitrogen and we can even do that kind of beyond the point of it being profitable. So nitrogen is certainly one of those ones that even though we can continue to add nitrogen and get a higher yields, there's kind of an economic return involved there. At the same time, it's very expensive for farmers to put on their fields. It takes a lot of energy to produce and if it isn't managed properly in a field, we can lose it to our waterways and it can become an environmental concern. Dusty Weis So that's kind of the look from the top. Why NCGA was interested in incorporating that in. But from the perspective of someone with their boots in the dirt, Nick, I've got to ask, what did you first think when you heard about this new idea from NCGA and the yield contest? Nick Preissler Yeah, so we were definitely excited to hear about this new class. I have to thank. My local seed dealer approached us when he found out about the class. He kind of thought it would be a really good fit on our farm with what we were already doing. We agreed and it kind of fit right in line with our goals where we were trying to be as efficient as possible with our nitrogen across all of our acres. So we kind of saw it as an opportunity to see what we could do against others and not really change our practices compared to our whole farm. Dusty Weis Brass tacks, Jim, let's talk about the specifics of the pilot class and how you arrived at where you did for setting those limits. Jim Isermann Well, it took a little time because we kind of went down a number of different roads as to how we actually wanted to approach this. You know, early on, talking to members of the Corn Board, past participants, did we want to look at more of a ROI type trial that we want to look at being involved with soil testing. But again, coming back to keeping it simple, if we want to look at inputs that are put on a field, those can vary a lot in terms of their cost and expense. Land values are so much that comes together in terms of talking about the economics and the ROI. We really decided that wasn't feasible to go down the path at a national level trying to take a look at those kind of things that can vary so much so centered on that idea of nitrogen bouncing around some ideas in terms of, well, do we want to take into account the nitrogen that's in the soil. We started to make the process both a little more complicated, but we also had some things in mind that we wanted out of this contest in terms of what are we encouraging, you know, what are we really challenging farmers on? And so it really kind of started to make sense that we just needed to kind of put a limit and a cap on the nitrogen. We needed to come up with a rate that would both challenge farmers and yet also be high enough that could give those good yields. So we didn't necessarily want to cut things down to a point where we're impacting yields for a lot of growers. There's an economic point that we need to highlight on and Nick kind of mentioned that he really didn't change things a whole lot when he joined this program. Right. He was already paying a lot of attention to that. So already achieving those high yields. We kind of referenced what's known as the maximum return to nitrogen. There's a calculator online that is applicable to Midwestern states where there's been a lot of research involved or they're really looking at the return in terms of yield. So they're actually taking in yield and they're adding in the idea of the cost of nitrogen and they're adding in the expected cost of corn to really get what that economic threshold would be for applying nitrogen, recognizing that there's a point that as we continue to go up, we can still increase yield, but we're doing it at a cost that is higher than that improvement. So we ended up with that 180 pounds, wanting to keep it as simple as we could. We decided that we didn't necessarily want to try to measure the nitrogen that's already in the soil, but we did want to restrict some of the things that are going on in terms of what has been previous crops, looking at some of the nitrogen that's been applied previously. So for the 1 80 units, we're looking at basically everything you're applying in that crop year for that corn. So we're looking at all the synthetics, we're looking at manure applications, any compost, anything like that you might have applied. We also putting some limitations on what that previous year could have been. So for example, we're not allowing alfalfa to be the crop ahead of the corn crop. Number one, this is already kind of an accepted practice. It's a good practice. You know, we don't necessarily want to discourage it, but we know that alfalfa can provide all the nitrogen necessary for a corn crop. And so that's not really the spirit of the program to see somebody apply an additional 180 units to add to a soil that already has enough nitrogen out there. Previous years, we do have just kind of a very general cap on the amount of nitrogen that can be applied the year before. Again, trying to avoid a situation where maybe somebody had a prevent plant situation where they put out a lot of nitrogen expecting to raise a corn crop, that soils may be still holding on to that. Now, the next year they're going to raise another corn crop. You know, if the soil already has adequate amounts of nitrogen to raise a corn crop, we don't want somebody putting on another 1 80 units in order to compete in this contest. So there are some rules out there, but I think they're all pretty common sense when you look at it. But we just want to make sure that we're trying to level the playing field to whatever extent that we can. The 180 pound rate, I think, kind of takes into account that some soils do provide more nitrogen than others. This type of a program across multiple states, unfortunately, we're just never going to be able to account for all those variations. There's always going to be those situations where maybe somebody feels they can't compete because of their soils or how they do things, but hopefully that 180 pound rate allows enough nitrogen to be applied even on those lower supplying soils that people feel that they can be competitive if they manage it properly. So as we looked at that maximum return to nitrogen calculator in specific, it applies largely to the Midwest and of course the fact, you know, I'm out of Streator, Illinois, so, you know, for me my expertise is kind of in the Midwest, but we realize that there's going to be a lot of changes when we look at other states. There's going to be arguments maybe for some different rates in terms of where they're at. So we did decide in the system as a pilot class here last year, and we are going to continue the limitation on the geography in this upcoming year. But we're looking at limiting it to some Midwest states, we're looking at nine states in the Midwest that we're allowing to join into this. Part of that is to make sure that we're not overwhelmed as we try to figure out all the ins and outs of this program and how we're going to make sure everybody is complying with the rules and how we're going to process the information that comes through, but also recognizing that we may need to reevaluate what those nitrogen rates look like as we move into different geographies and different states. Dusty Weis So first year of a new contest, we set the cap at 180 pounds of added nitrogen. Nick, I got to ask you, a lot of growers are going to look at 180 pounds of nitrogen and say, Whoa, that's insane. We've never done it like that. And some growers are going to look at that and say, I'll tighten the belt a little bit. Not a big deal. What was your reaction? Was it a fair number to work with in your mind? Nick Preissler I thought definitely was fair. From what we were already doing, we were kind of planning to start with the base rate below that. Anyhow, on my field it was corn on corn and it was still doable at the 180 pounds. So if you're going on soybean ground, you can probably cut back a little bit. But listening to Jim's points there on how difficult it is to set that for the whole nation there, I think they kind of came up with a pretty fair target there to start with. Dusty Weis Was that your why for why you wanted to enter the contest because you were already in that sort of a range anyways, that it wasn't going to be sort of a big stretch for you? Or what made you see this as a new pilot class in the contest and say, Yeah, it's something that I want to commit my farm to this year? Nick Preissler Yeah. So I'd have to say this was our second year working with a company called Sentinel Fertigation. We've been really focusing on trying to dial in our nitrogen efficiency the last two years. Their technology uses satellite imagery. We establish canary blocks in our fields with our first nitrogen application. The imagery analyzes those blocks throughout the growing season to kind of give us real time recommendation on if a certain field needs another shot of nitrogen or if we can hold off and get by with what we have out there. So I think utilizing this technology just fit right in line with this class. So we kind of wanted to put that to test against others. Dusty Weis Now, Nick, you're a younger fellow in the farming business. Aurora, Nebraska, is in eastern, approaching central Nebraska, sort of halfway between Lincoln and Kearney out there. Is this a family operation? Nick Preissler So, yeah, this is actually my sixth going into my sixth year farming on my own. I farm alongside my father and my uncle and also my grandpa. Dusty Weis What does your grandpa think about all these new technologies that you're able to deploy on the farm with the satellite imagery, with the sort of soil testing that you're able to do that help you make these big sweeping practice changes? Nick Preissler Yeah. So I think he really enjoys seeing us utilize these technologies. He talks about when they first started applying nitrogen, it was cheap. More was always better. He enjoys seeing us trying to dial that in now. Dusty Weis What about the location itself? Nick, out in Aurora, Nebraska. What sorts of challenges and opportunities does this location present you as a grower? Nick Preissler So in Hamilton County, a good majority of the acres here are irrigated. We're blessed with the Ogallala Aquifer below us, so we have really good wells. That's definitely a big advantage there. Along with that, I think some of the challenges would also be weather. Last year we found out that irrigation can't completely replace rainfall. It's meant to compliment the rainfall. We had some challenges there keeping up with that. Also with the weather. Hail and wind is pretty prevalent in our area. We try to minimize our risk there with nitrogen management. If we can hold back some of our applications just in case we do have a wind or hail event, it's pretty important. Dusty Weis Kind of helps you bounce back there after one of those traumatic events out in the field. Yeah, you certainly ended the season with a great yield, even with the limitation in place just shy of 313 bushels per acre, that's well above the national average of 177. Not far off from the 374 bushels per acre average of the yield contest national winners who weren't contending with the cap on their nitrogen. So what would you say you learned through this process? Nick Preissler We've really learned how difficult nitrogen management is. There's a lot of factors that go into play and how much nitrogen is available each year utilizing the technology to be able to read the crop throughout the growing season and let it tell you what it needs instead of trying to guess that ahead of time. Dusty Weis Looking back on everything that you learned, are there any big changes that you're planning to make going forward? Nick Preissler I think one big one, we're going to cut back our base rate for this year, so we're going to start out with a little bit less nitrogen up front and then wait and see if we need to have any additional passes after that. Dusty Weis Now, Jim, I'm sure a lot of people who are interested in this might be asking themselves at this point, how do you verify that no more than 180 pounds of nitrogen were used? Jim Isermann Yeah, that came out to be kind of the real trick. How do you verify this? Right? Because the program is simple. That's, again, one of the contests hasn't been so successful. So we didn't want it to be an overly intrusive process to try to verify this. But we did realize, you know, we need to set up some rules. We need to set up a way to kind of check those rules. So the guidelines are all available on the Corn Yield Contest web page. And everybody who is interested in looking at this program should take a review of them. So we set up all those different things in terms of, you know, if you're going to have manure involved, for example, you need to have a test for your manure, to let us know how much nitrogen is readily available. You know, you need to take an account of all fertilizer that's being applied. So if you're using a diammonium phosphate type scenario where you're applying nitrogen on there, sometimes farmers aren't necessarily through the amount of nitrogen that's going on because they're using that for their phosphorus. So it's making sure that you're accounting for all the nitrogen that is available that we're applying to that field. And then the audit process is taking a look at all your records just to make sure. Number one, certainly we're hoping nobody's doing anything kind of intentionally, but a lot of it is really just making sure that a farmer didn't miss something in their own calculations as they go through that. So we don't audit everybody. We're only looking at the winners. So we're kind of expecting that if you're enrolling in the program, you're going to give us that information that by and large it's going to be accurate. But in order to be a winner, we do go through a process where we ask you to submit your records at the field level. We look for geospatial maps. If you have anything available, we'll look at your yield data. We want to look at, you know, application maps. And again, there's some more fine tuned rules in there. If you look through the actual guidelines. For farmers who are good record keepers, I don't think it's very intrusive. I know with Nick, we shot him off an email saying, hey, you know, looking to do the audit, asked for some records. He responded pretty promptly, gave me the information back. And then I think we had about a 30 minute follow up call, just kind of walk through what some of that information was. So, you know, hopefully he can tell you how bad that process was. But I know he was pretty good to work with on that end and was able to provide the information that made us feel that we could verify it pretty easily. We'll be looking for feedback from producers who were involved, how that works, and as we ramp it up, that's one of the reasons we're still are quite ready to put this out nationwide. Dusty Weis Yeah, maybe I'm a huge nerd, but that's actually one part of the process that's really interesting to me because to do an audit, you need data. To get data, you need recordkeeping. And certainly farm record keeping is something that looks completely different from how it looked 30 years ago. Nick I got to ask you, was this all digital data that you were just able to drag into an attachment and fire over to Jim and the team, or are you guys still using notebook and pencil? Nick Preissler Yeah, most all of it was digital. We try to do a pretty good job of getting accurate records, and I guess we had as-applied maps that I was able to send over to Jim and it was a pretty easy process sharing it. Dusty Weis That makes it a lot easier. Yeah. I mean, Jim, can you even fathom running a category like this 30 years ago before so many of these records were digital? Would that even be something that was feasible? Jim Isermann Well, we do try to make some allowances for everyone who isn't going to have everything digital. So again, if you read through some of the guidelines, it's going to lay out, you know, if you don't have those as applied maps, what are we expecting from you in terms of submitting data? So we're going to be looking, though, a little harder at actual cash receipts or something like that. You know, might be a little more of a step to kind of prove, you know, what was actually applied to that field. I think we did a pretty good job. But at the end of the day, in order to keep the integrity of the program, we did have to kind of set some limitations that we're going to have to have something to really kind of be able to look and verify that this was done in an appropriate manner. Dusty Weis Right. The evolving technology definitely plays a role in it. But I wanted to ask both of your first and I think we'll start with Nick here. But when you talk to other growers, do you see these sorts of practices gaining attention and popularity? And if so, why do you think that is? Nick Preissler Yeah, so there's been a lot of interest from people just curious about the class, what we did to reach those levels in our area. I touched on the Ogallala Aquifer before. There's been a lot of focus on the nitrate levels. There is talk of regulations down the road, so I think everyone's trying to get ahead of that, really try to be as efficient as possible. Dusty Weis Regulate yourself before somebody else does it for you, sort of an attitude. Nick Preissler Exactly. Dusty Weis What about you, Jim? What do you think's driving a lot of the interest in this? Jim Isermann I think a lot of it is the certainly the environmental side. But the push from the farmers really does a lot of times come down to the economics of it all, just trying to understand what can we apply in terms of inputs that we're still getting the yield, but that that yield is profitable. So I think that's a big driver for some of these other practices. And we're just kind of coupling that with the environmental impacts because it is kind of surprising how often the right economic move could also be the right move for the environment. You know, particularly as we look at nitrogen, if we get the right rates out there, that gets us more in line with what we should be doing in terms of applications, but don't want to show our farmers either that they are responding very much to the questions that are being raised about their impact on the environment or they're out there trying to do the right things. I work with a lot of growers trying to adopt cover crops and reduce tillage systems, so it is both sides, but it's a much easier conversation when we can approach farmers from the money side of things and the economics then than trying to talk about potential regulations or concerns of that nature. Dusty Weis No, certainly. And of course, we're at a point right now in the year where down south maybe some folks are starting to get some crops in the ground. Here in the upper Midwest, they're at least getting their plans made for the year. As they're making their plans, what comes next for this class of the corn yield contest in 2024? Jim Isermann Well, I think first and foremost, anybody that wants to be involved understand that we're looking at that 180 pound rate. So that's going to apply to what you applied last fall as well for this upcoming corn crop. So if you're looking to take an interest in this class, you need to make sure that as you make those plans that you're looking at all those different forms of nitrogen and making sure that you're not going over that 180 pound limit. Can certainly visit the website, reach out to national corn. I'm sure they can get you in touch with me as well if you have any specific questions on that. But hopefully you're looking at your nitrogen applications and how you do that anyway. And maybe this can kind of be one more reason to look at lowering that rate if that's the case or if you're in a situation like Nick where it's not necessarily lowering the rate, I think it can be a great opportunity for you to show how well you can actually still raise corn with these types of nitrogen rates. Dusty Weis Nick, what about you? I mean, you're the reigning champ now. You got the title belt held up above your head here, up in the ring. Are you looking to go back to back now? Are you going to become the David Hula of the limited nitrogen category? Nick Preissler Sure gonna try, yeah. We're excited for this year and we're excited to make a few adjustments and just see what we can do again. Dusty Weis What would you say to other growers who might be thinking about the class, but they're really not sure about it yet? Nick Preissler I would encourage them to just try maybe start with one field to start cutting back a little bit. And I think a lot of people will be surprised with the kind of yields they can get. Dusty Weis And Jim, you mentioned a website. If I'm a grower and I want to learn more about the corn yield contest, where do I go to find out. Jim Isermann They can find more information on the yield contest by visiting NCGA.com/yieldcontest. Dusty Weis Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for filling us in and telling us a little bit more about this category of the yield contest. This is one of the things about the Corn Growers Association, I think that so many of us look forward to every year. And so it's been great to hear about your story, Nick, as well as sort of the impetus for why this new category was launched. Nick Preissler is a grower from Aurora, Nebraska, and the first ever winner in the cornfield contest nitrogen management pilot class. Jim Isermann is an agronomist who works with the NCG to lead the way to design it. Gentlemen, thank you both so much for joining us on the podcast. And thank you for listening. We hope you'll join us again next month for another episode of the Comcast Inside the Ground with the National Corn Growers Association. If you're on Facebook, LinkedIn or X, be sure to follow the National Corn Growers for more news. Visit NCGA.com to sign up for the association's email newsletter and make sure you're following the show on your favorite podcast app. The Cobcast is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, with sound engineering by Makeover Moebius and editing by Will Henry, and it's produced by Podcamp Media, Branded Podcast Production for Businesses, PodcampMedia.com Dusty Weis For the National Corn Growers Association, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.

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