Hoosier Ag Today, Indiana’s leading agricultural communications company, has partnered with the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture to produce a series of video reports designed to improve farmers’ productivity and profitability. Sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance, the series will focus on researched-based techniques that will allow growers to improve yields and, in many cases, reduce their cost of production. Called the Better Farming Report, the short video presentations will be placed on-line on the HAT web site (https://www.hoosieragtoday.com/better-farming-report/ ) and on the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture web site (https://ag.purdue.edu/commercialag/Pages/default.aspx). In addition, short radio features from these presentation will be aired on the 65 stations of the Hoosier Ag Today radio network.
The first program, now on-line, features Dr. Shawn Casteel from the Purdue Department of Agronomy and Dr. Jim Mintert from the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture. The program covers how soybean growers can hit their yield goals for 2016 while reducing their per bushel production costs. Based on his extensive field trials, Dr. Casteel demonstrates how growers can reduce their seeding rates without impacting yield. Dr. Mintert says the cost of seed represents 35% of a growers cost per bushel, so reducing seed costs can significantly improve a grower’s profit margin. He added that this is groundbreaking research because it shows that farmers can reduce production costs without reducing yields.
Future programs will cover planting dates, soil fertility, price outlooks, and other timely topics. A new program will be posted on-line each month. “We started out in the studio. but once we get crops in the field we plan to take this program out to the Purdue research farms and to farming operations around the state,” said Gary Truitt, host of the program.