With the spring planting season starting, Agricen’s Scott Lay spoke with Dennis Michelsen on WITY Radio’s Down on the Farm podcast about why growers might want to take a look at Extract PBA this year to get more out of nutrients they’ve already paid for.

Dennis - WITY Radio: Input costs are going up for producers, but that’s why they need to take an extra look at Extract this year. 

Scott - Agricen: Extract aids in the mineralization and release of nutrients that are already in the soil profile or in last year’s crop residue. These are nutrients that the farmer has already paid for. The object is getting more of these nutrients in a plant-available form to provide the necessary fuel to increase crop yield.

Evan Matlock, a farmer from Greenfield, Indiana, first started using Titan XC on his farm about five years ago. In his first year of testing it, he applied Titan XC-treated dry fertilizer on a partial field of soybeans and a partial field of corn. There was an obvious difference between the parts of the field where Titan XC had and had not been applied.

“You could see it visually and we saw it on aerial imagery throughout the year,” he says. “When we took it to harvest, the corn stood out about 4.8 bushels better (with Titan XC) and the soybeans were 2.8 bushels better.”

With those results, Evan had a feeling that Titan XC might be a product he wanted to implement on a broader scale at the farm. That next year, he tested Titan XC-treated dry fertilizer on about half of his acres.

“The next year, we continued to see a yield increase,” he says.

Five years later, he uses Titan XC-treated fertilizer on every acre at Matlock Farms.

Accomplish MAX, a next-generation biocatalyst that provides nutrient efficiency and crop stress tolerance benefits, is now available from Loveland Products through Nutrien Ag Solutions retail locations. It is designed for use with in-furrow starters, 2x2 placement of liquid fertilizers, and liquid sidedress applications.

Accomplish MAX is a proprietary combination of proven Accomplish biocatalyst technology, which growers have used for over a decade to improve nutrient mineralization and uptake on millions of acres across the United States, and cutting-edge kelp technology designed to enhance crop tolerance to abiotic stressors such as cold temperatures, drought and fertilizer salts. 

Key benefits of Accomplish MAX:

• Increases nutrient availability and uptake by mineralizing nutrients in the soil
• Improves plant tolerance to abiotic stresses such as cold temperatures and salinity from commercial fertilizers
• Enhances overall plant performance to help growers reach their yield potential

When Illinois farmer Benjamin Rice first heard about Titan XC, he thought it sounded too good to be true. But he was trying to find a way to increase the efficiency of the dry fertilizer he was spreading on his farm, so he decided to take it to the field and try it.

Benjamin took two different 80-acre fields, split them in half, and spread the north half of each field with Titan XC-treated dry fertilizer and the south half with untreated dry fertilizer in the fall. He also took two different 40-acre fields and did the same, but spread the treated and untreated dry fertilizer in the spring.

He wanted to commit multiple years to the trial to see if Titan XC consistently worked. For three years, he repeated the side by side trials on the same fields.

“We’re on a corn and beans crop rotation. After the first year I saw a yield increase consistently on the side of the field treated with Titan XC,” he says. “After all three years, both spread in the fall or spread in the spring, my field averages made 6.8 bushel better on corn and 2.6 bushel better on beans.”

Agricen’s Scott Lay recently spoke with Hoosier Ag Today about how growers can maximize their dry fertilizer investment with Titan XC.

Hoosier Ag Today: One of the first decisions for farmers regarding next year's crop results relate to dry fertilizer. With fertilizer prices surging, growers are trying to find ways to maximize their investment. Lay says that's where Titan XC comes into play.

Titan XC and Extract PBA both help growers get more out of their fertilizer investments. But is there any benefit when they are applied in the same growing season? These trials show how Titan XC on fall dry fertilizer followed by Extract PBA broadcast in the spring with pre-emerge herbicide can lead to improved yields and return on investment for the grower.

All three on-farm trials—two corn, one soybean—were conducted in South Sioux City, Nebraska, to look at the addition of Titan XC and Extract PBA to the grower's standard practice (GSP). Titan XC was applied at 1 pint per ton to dry fertilizer that was spread in the fall of 2019. This was followed in the spring of 2020 by Extract PBA applied at 1 gallon per acre with pre-emerge herbicide. 

In both corn trials, fall-applied Titan XC followed by spring-applied Extract PBA led to a yield increase of over +12 bushels per acre, which was accompanied by a positive ROI.

Along with raising cattle, the DeBaillie family has been growing corn and soybeans in northwestern Illinois for over 65 years. Today, Randy, Rob and Russell DeBaillie, who are the third-generation of farmers in their family, farm around 6,000 acres of land in a longstanding no-till farming practice. Extract PBA is one of the products they rely on to help them run a successful operation.

Like other growers, the DeBaillies like to get their crops in as early as possible, usually in the last week in April. They typically plant corn at 36,000 seeds per acre in their highly productive rolling clay hills. Given their northern location in Orion, Illinois, harvest ordinarily ends around Thanksgiving.

Rob, Russell and Randy DeBaillie of Orion, Illinois - on the farm and ready to plant in an Extract-treated field.

Does a pre-emergence application of Extract PBA increase soybean yields, and does it provide a return on investment?

In recent on-farm, replicated research conducted by Ohio State University (OSU) Extension, Extract PBA checked off both boxes, showing a positive yield benefit and a positive net return to the grower.

Recent corn and soybean trials from the Bruce Research Farm at Hopkinsville, Kentucky highlight the opportunities for yield success with Titan XC on dry fertilizer.

In corn, a replicated trial demonstrated a yield increase of +9.5 bushels per acre when dry fertilizer (300# 9-23-30) was treated with Titan XC and compared to untreated dry fertilizer, with a calculated net return of $31.48 per acre. (The ROI calculation assumes corn at $4.05 per bushel.) 

At the Nutrien Ag Solutions branch in Manlius, Illinois, farmer and crop consultant Chad Taylor has been witness to many Titan XC success stories. One that particularly stands out in his mind is the effect that Titan XC has had on one of his grower client's fields, helping to transform farmland that was largely phosphorus deficient into land with optimal soil phosphorus levels. 

"The farm was quite run down when he purchased it, and we've been pretty amazed with the activity of Titan XC in just a short time," says Chad.

When the grower first took over the field in 2012, soil tests taken in fall showed that phosphorus levels were very low throughout the field, with an average soil phosphorus level of just 41.5 lbs/acre. Five years later, after applying Titan XC-treated phosphorus and potassium fertilizers every fall, soil phosphorus levels were excellent. In 2017, the date of the most recent soil tests (taken in spring), the average soil phosphorus level had increased to 122.5 lbs/acre.