This Yield Check is made possible by Specialty Hybrids.
Even though Phil Probst of Family Farms in Sturgis received about four inches of rain from this last event, he’s been taking advantage of this down time.
“It’s a good time to catch up on all of our paperwork,” he says. “We started some shop projects already, fixing irrigation, cleaning up storm damage—a lot of little stuff we would do in the winter that we’re doing now. We also offer soil sampling as a service, so we’ve been busy doing that, grid sampling and meeting with farmers [to] set up a whole farm plan.”
Probst is also a dealer for Specialty Hybrids and operates Family Ag Services. He’s been talking with growers about the season’s biggest issues with corn and soybeans.
“We’ve been showing that with a treatment on soybeans, we’ve been able to eliminate sudden death [syndrome],” he says. “We have pictures and proof that some varieties do betters than others on tar spot. We’ve been able to help educate.”
Because of grain market uncertainty and unpredictable fertilizer markets, he says growers have been a little slow to make decisions.
“[They’ve] been very open to talk with us, and we love coming to your farm and sitting down, looking at your soil samples and Climate [FieldView] to help pinpoint different spots in our fields,” says Probst. “It’s been good helping to educate, sit down and nail down a plan to make everybody money for next year—that’s been our big goal.”
Probst wants to make sure his farm employees and customers feel like family. He says he’s seen strong yields this fall and is optimistic for a good season next year.
