Why Farmer's Side Dress Their Corn..

[Music] [Music] good morning everybody today we're gonna do some side dressing but before we do that I gotta head into this building right here and I got to do a little bit of more power washing and then we'll head into the fields and get to it it's a beautiful summer day here in Iowa it's about saving degrees out a little bit of wind about perfect for anything you want to do outside so very happy with that I'm glad that the rains finally started to stop because there's a period there where it was just raining constantly for about a week too so I'm glad that we're finally getting some sunshine and it kind of actually feels like a summer ah I just got that on video oh my gosh what I was trying to do there was not put my hand in the frickin door I was trying to grab the door handle and I freaking shot my finger in there great way to start the day baby great way not the most ideal way to start my day shut my finger in the door as you could see but what I was gonna say is I have four hours of power washing left I have them all the way down I got ten hours down because I figured takes you ten hours to go down because I like to be a lot more detailed on the way down and it takes you about four hours to come back so I have to come back today and I'm gonna do four hours it's currently 9:45 in the morning I didn't get after it really today this morning because I power wash from 6:00 6:30 yesterday all the way till about 7:00 but it like 6:00 to 7:00 and obviously I took some breaks here and there in there in that period but still that's a long time power wash and I was a little a little tired I hit the hay right when I got home pretty much and I just couldn't really get up this morning very well so I slept in but I'm gonna make up for I'm gonna get this done then we're gonna go inside dressing [Music] well we're done power washing for this building but I can tell you I'm very very happy be done because I fight how to do another day of power washing I don't know if I could do it I am tuckered out and I'm glad that I'm gonna be done power washing for a long time so that being said I'm gonna get changed I'm gonna head home I'm gonna shower and then I'm gonna change into clothes and see if my dad's running the tractor side dressing because he's been side dressing while I've been power washing he so if he's running it and he wants to continue to run it I'll let him run it if not I'm gonna jump in there we're gonna start side dressing ice decided not to go change I'm just gonna come over here into this North cornfield and kind of explain you guys what side dressing is and why we're doing it as I was power washing for the last couple days and my dad has started side dressed so we started side dressing yesterday and my dad has finished this whole North cornfield right here so we're into the South cornfield across the road and that's where he's at right now they did not expect me to come up on the side I don't even think they thought that was a thing so what side dressing really is is putting more nitrogen on just not all in the fall it's coming back and put more nitrogen on in the summertime as well we go ahead and start side dressing when the corn plants about 16 inches tall so that's perfect that's where right where we're at right now we put nitrogen on three times a year one in the fall one in the spring and one in the summer some of you may be asked in soy why do you put nitrogen on three times a year opposed to just putting it all in the beginning one time and the reason for that is it's better for your plant to get nitrogen a little bits of nitrogen throughout the year as it's growing poster throwing it all on at once and just hoping that none of it leeches out or anything like that any time you put nitrogen on your field in your corn plant you can only account for about 80% of it because there's the other 20% some of its going to go into the atmosphere some of its going to leach out and some of it you're not gonna get a use out of it for another year it takes about two years for that nitrogen to work in so that's kind of why we put nitrogen on three times a year and the goal with this is the goal with putting all this nitrogen on is to aim for about whatever year you want your crop to yield at so we believe that we think we can get our crop to yield at about 250 so if you don't even go ahead and put 250 pounds of nitrogen on all your ground you will never even get close to that yield because nitrogen is one of the most if not the most important element to your corn plant you need nitrogen to even have a chance to even get to that yield it's pretty much the same thing as humans when they're trying to put muscle on the consensus around the fitness world is you need a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight in order to put on muscle it's the same thing here with nitrogen and how much you want to yield if you won't think that your ground is good enough to yield 250 you better put 250 pounds of nitrogen on that ground or else you don't even got a shot that being said nitrogen doesn't equal that yield you know there's a lot more factors that go into making a great yielding crop there's micronutrients there's all different kinds of stuff that goes into a corn crop but nitrogen is very very important we're aiming for 250s our yield but you know we might not get there because there's some other factors the weather plays a huge factor in any crop so if everything else goes perfect you had everything right and you put the right amount of nitrogen on nitrogen on you could get that yield in the fall we put on four thousand gallons of hog manure per acre per 1,000 gallons of hog manure is 45 to 50 pounds of nitrogen so that's kind of where that 180 or 200 range comes from because you don't know how great your manure is each year you know you one year could be really great one year could have a little too much water in it so the nitrogen level is not as good so 45 to 50 range to 180 to 200 is the range of our hog manure next springtime comes around your corn plants in the ground everything's going great and then you come and you spray for the weeds when they come and spray for the weeds they put about 40 pounds of nitrogen on when they're coming and spraying the weeds so there's a little bit of more nitrogen on there now we're into the summertime and it's time to side dress and when we go to side dress we put about 50 pounds of nitrogen on last thing on this magical ray about side dressing and nitrogen as a farmer it's very very important that you know your ground take soil samples all that stuff because if I were to throw 250 you know pounds of nitrogen on this field and it was a field that could only yield about 150 because the grounds not great you know the type of dirt that it is isn't great it's probably a bad idea to do that reason that's a bad idea is because it's not a very sustainable way of farming you know some of that nitrogen can leach out and go into the creeks and that's bad for the environment so that's why it's important to know your ground know how much you think you can yield and put the right amount of nitrogen on I hope you enjoyed my little rant there I know it was kind of a long one but for anybody that doesn't know nitrogen or side dressing or why we do it that is kind of why we do it and I tell all the farmers out there that watch my channel I know that you guys probably already know this and I was really boring you can just skip ahead but I hope it was knowledgeable the people that don't actually know what the hell we're doing another morning of side dressing but today we're not going to be able to side rest early because earlier this morning it frickin poured down rain poured and I mean poured so all I'm gonna really do I'm gonna go ahead and chore and then I'm probably gonna do a lot of editing cuz I have a lot of editing kind of got to catch up on so I'm gonna do a lot of editing and tomorrow if the weather is nice we will go into side dressing because we really need to get this done we really need to get this rig out because this isn't our rig this rig is provided by the company that gives us our chemicals and nitrogen we use they let us use this rig right here so we got to get it out because of other farmers need to use it alright so we're back another day of side dressing we're actually gonna side dress today we're not gonna get rained out hopefully the grounds dried up it's not moist anymore so we should be all good to go it'll take me probably three hours or so to finish just because my dad pretty much did the rest of it power washing took me longer than I thought it was more we head out there we got to fill this baby up right here and then we'll be all full the thing those days would be empty this would be full and we should be all good to go she's all filled up and ready to go so we're gonna head to the field and get started [Music] [Music] we have about 50 to 60 acres left and that's about as much nitrogen we got in this tank they'll probably work out to be perfect so I'm just gonna run till we run out fun fact for y'all this is my first time ever side dressing and I'm gonna be honest I love it just because you know I love being a tractor and you go about six and a half to seven miles an hour which is great because you fly compared to doing anything else the one thing that I will say that I struggled with in the beginning a little bit was just not just knowing where I got I left off because it's kind of it's it's harder to see where you got done versus just like tilling cuz tilling you probably see what you've tilled and what you haven't till so sometimes I got off a little bit on my rose but I got back I got the hang of it I understand and I kind of see now where you just gotta be conscious of where you left off but anyway chugging along got a got about probably two hours to an hour and a half left and we should be good alright so I just got this chunk all the way done so I'm gonna head over across this waterway over here I'm head over to that chunk and started on that armen something you gotta be really conscious about when your side dressing is you got it when you get hit some rough spots you really want to try to slow it down because you really don't want everything you kind of want everything to be even you don't want everything to move one way or the other so that's just something you got to be really cautious about so sometimes I like to throw out all the down if some parts get a little too rough alright so I just got done finishing up side dress and everything side dress everything has the right amount of nitrogen that we need for this crop to yield what we want it to yield if everything else goes right my dad and I are super happy with the way the corns growing it's growing like crazy it's coming out of the ground real nice the weather's been perfect we got rain I think Friday we got rained out was about 3/4 an inch of rain and then the Sun came out and humidity cranked up which is perfect that's what the corn wants and that's what the corn likes and just throwing this nitrogen in the ground putting the right amount on it's just like throwing gasoline on a fire it's gonna make this corn grow even better and come out of the ground even more so it couldn't be more happy the way things are going [Music] [Music] thank you guys so much for watching if you want to support me in this channel at any way just all I ask for you guys to do is give it a thumbs up and also if you want to see more what this farm is about what I'm about feel free to subscribe and hit that Bell icon so you get notified every time I post a video I hope you guys have a great rest of your day and I'll see you in the next one peace [Music] [Music]

Channel: This'll Do Farm

Views: 2,426

Rating: 4.981132 out of 5

Keywords: why farmers side dress their corn, side dressing, tractor, john deere, corn, agriculture, farming, farm, spraying corn, agricultural jobs, agriculture technology, farmer, family farm, pig farm, powerwashing, side dressing explained, farming explained, farming for beginners, tractor videos, farming videos, thislldofarm, big farm, dream farm, farming for profit, side dressing corn, side dress, farming for kids, real farming videos, farm entrepreneur, farm life, side dressing 2020

Id: EwMT1kK8nrk

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020