It's Starting Off Just Like...

I'm starting to see articles with titles like, "Lessons learned from 2019" in ag press and social media. In fact, I posted one today on Prairie Agronomics' Facebook page from Prairie Farmer that outlines six lessons for weed control that we can use. Good info there.

A challenging year like 2019 tempts one to treat the following growing season the way we feel would have worked out better if we could have perfect hindsight. Temptations such as rushing to plant early, even if conditions aren't perfect. Temptations such as switching entire weed control strategies to whatever seems to be perfect in our neighborhood this season. The list of management tactics that could be tempting us to change because they appear to have been "the thing" that made all the difference in 2019 is exhaustive.

The thing that needs to be foremost in our minds as we consider these changes is this: 2020 in all likelihood will not be "the same" as 2019. So those things that tempt us to make sweeping management changes in our crop production tactics could well backfire in a different growing season scenario. 

I have experienced several milestone seasons over the course of my 40 years of involvement  in agronomy. Standouts include 1988, 1993, 1996, 2005, and 2012. In each of these years, I have talked to growers who are convinced they need to significantly change something they have done successfully long term but failed them in that one extreme season. Something that worked for the past 15 or more years, but because it wasn't successful in one, it's going to be scrapped in favor of something that is perceived to have performed better under the extreme conditions.

Human tendency is to have a short memory, and to think that what happened to us most recently is going to be our new "normal." This is rarely the case. Extremes are just that, outliers in our long term database of conditions and results. Successful managers use trends to make decisions, not one time results or single data points. It's difficult to remove emotions from decisions following challenging years like 2019, but as much as possible, we need to be rational and analytical in making any major changes to our cropping systems.

So after 2019 is in our rear view mirror, and we are looking forward to 2020, let's try to decide if the corn and beans were actually greener on the other side of the fence, or are we being tempted into believing they were?? 

W Kevin Nelson, CCA 4R NMS
Senior Agronomist
Prairie Agronomics, LLC