Cut costs without sacrificing yields

Profitability can increase when inputs are reduced and yields can be maintained. The key is to first increase soil health.

Near Carroll, Ohio, Jay Brandt continues a legacy built by his late father, David Brandt, an iconic farmer who started no-tilling and growing cover crops in the 1970s. Today, on the farm’s 1,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat, Jay Brandt uses 50% of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer used by conventionally farming neighbors, he says, and 60% to 70% of the herbicide.

Despite these reductions in inputs, yields and profit hold strong. “We’re in the yield average for our area,” says Brandt, “and profitability is good because of the crop rotation and because our cost of production is very low due to our reduced use of inputs.”

No-till farmer and cover crop grower Sonny Price has experienced similar results on his 6,600-acre farm near Dillon, South Carolina, where he grows corn, beans, soybeans, cotton, winter wheat, and cover crops. In 2016 and 2017, Price stopped applying phosphorus, potash, and lime despite general assumptions that yields couldn’t be sustained in his region without those inputs.

But yields have maintained and even increased, while the reduction in inputs brings significant savings. “In 2017, Price was saving $50 an acre just by not applying lime, a savings that easily paid the cost of his cover crop seed,” says University of South Carolina researcher Robin (Buz) Kloot. At 2017’s prices, the savings from not applying phosphorus and potassium amounted to another $50 to $70 an acre, adds Kloot, generating a total savings of $120 an acre.

An educational series for farmers who want to take their skills to the next level. Check out more Farm School content HERE.

Cut Costs 101: No-Till, Cover Crop Combo

Brandt and Price have found that synthetic inputs can be reduced under no-till/cover crop management because the system feeds soil biology, stabilizing nutrients in soil and making them more available to crops. “Because of good soil health and the soil habitat we have created, nutrient cycling is high in our soil,” says Brandt. “The soil biology converts organic matter for the soil and for the crop.”

Brandt grows cover crops after every cash crop. After harvesting corn in October, he plants cereal rye, either with a grain drill or by broadcasting the rye seed with a fertilizer spreader. “A fertilizer spreader lets us cover a lot of acres at a time,” he says. “Sometimes we’ll use a crop roller to roll down the cornstalks.

“On those fields where we’re following soybeans with corn, as we sometimes do, we’ll plant a mix of rye, crimson clover, and hairy vetch with a grain drill,” he says.

After harvesting wheat in July, he plants the 12-species Nitro Mix, one of the cover crop mixes developed and marketed through the family’s cover crop business, Walnut Creek Seeds.

For Price, growing cover crops is the key to building soil health and thus reducing inputs and costs. Though he started no-tilling in 1989, he didn’t see real improvements in soil health and increases in organic matter until he began growing covers in 2013.

“Now, the whole farm is changing,” says Price. “The tilth of the land is better, and the soil is filled with earthworms. Organic matter has increased from an average of 1.8% in 2015 to an average of 2.3% across the farm in 2022. We’re producing better yields even though we’ve cut back on inputs.”

Price plants a multispecies warm-season cover crop after harvesting corn in August. The mix typically includes non-GMO soybeans, sunflower, sorghum sudangrass, German millet, Daikon radish, and sunn hemp. He applies the mix at a rate of 30 pounds to the acre, at a cost of $25 an acre.

“We’ll let that cover crop grow until the end of October before we burn it down,” says Price. “By then, if we get the rain, it’ll be shoulder high. I plant right into that tall residue, and my planter flattens it down. The winter wheat I plant comes up fine through the residue.”

He harvests the winter wheat in early June, and follows that with double-crop soybeans that are harvested in October.

After harvesting the soybeans, he plants a multispecies, cool-season cover crop of Abruzzi rye, triticale, winter pea, crimson clover, hairy vetch, and Daikon radish. He seeds the mix at a rate of 26 pounds per acre and a cost of $23.50 an acre. To reduce seed cost, he grows for seed 130 acres of rye on sandier soils.

The following spring, he plants either corn or cotton into the cool-season cover crop residue.

When determining application rates of commercial nitrogen for corn, Price aims for a corn yield of 175 to 200 bushels per acre. Given the nitrogen contributions of both cover crops and the chicken litter he applies, Price has reduced commercial nitrogen applications to 140 pounds per acre. “In the future, we’re hoping to drop that rate back to 80 pounds per acre and eventually cut it to zero,” he says.

“I’ve been able to reduce the nitrogen application to cotton to 25 pounds per acre, while the standard is 90 pounds,” he adds. “Even with that reduced rate, we harvested our biggest cotton crop in recent years.”

While Brandt has also reduced synthetic nitrogen applications, he continues to use starter fertilizer for wheat and corn. “We apply liquid urea to wheat and to corn at the V5 leaf stage,” he says. “We stopped using starter fertilizer with soybeans.”

He applies no fungicides or insecticides and “plants naked seed as much as we can source,” he says. “We are starting to use a farm-applied seed treatment.” It’s a biological seed treatment applied as compost tea using as a base soil from around the farm.

Brandt’s reductions in herbicides result in part from the cover crops and their time of termination. “We plant right into the cover crops and terminate them after planting, either by herbicide or by roller-crimping, depending on the time of year and maturity of the cover crop. If the cover crops are mature, the roller-crimper will for the most part effectively terminate them, and we just have to follow up with a light application of herbicide.”

But Brandt keeps an eye on potential weed growth in fields and may apply herbicide to control perennials such as johnsongrass or Canada thistle.

For Price, cover crops have resulted in additional cost reductions related to subsoiling. He quit subsoiling nine years ago because he relies instead on cover crop roots to break up compaction. “Subsoiling is an expensive job,” he says. “It takes extra horsepower, time, and fuel.”

Cut Costs 201: Build Soil Health

The key to reducing inputs while sustaining profitability centers on building soil health. Brandt relies on the standard soil health principles to guide management decisions. “We minimize soil disturbance by eliminating tillage and reducing applications of chemicals,” he says.

Residues from cover crops and cash crops, especially wheat, help “to keep the ground covered,” he says.

The multispecies cover crops “keep living roots in the ground” for as long as possible throughout the growing season, another key soil health principle, notes Brandt.

Increasing plant diversity, another important principle, results from the diversity of cash crops combined with cover crops.

“We also add livestock to the cropping system as often as we can,” he says. Whenever possible, he engages a local sheep producer to graze the multispecies cover crop planted after wheat. The manure and urine from the sheep feed the soil microorganisms, which jump-start the further building of soil fertility.

As soil health increases, says Brandt, soil becomes more resilient, reducing its dependence on chemical inputs. “The soil also becomes more resilient to changes in weather,” he says. “The crops grown in healthy soil can better withstand both dry and wet weather.”

Cut Costs 301: Experiment, Be Patient

Figuring out how and when to start cutting inputs requires a learning curve, and Brandt advises this: “Start small. Learn how to adapt new practices to your farm and environment. And be patient.”

When adopting a combination of no-till and cover crops, benefits may not become evident, he notes, until after one to two cycles of a corn/soybean rotation or three to six cycles in a more diverse rotation. But on the other hand, he says, “Some farmers just starting to grow cover crops have told me they see an immediate response in weed reduction and a reduced need to apply herbicide.”

Price got started reducing inputs by first participating in a cover crop trial conducted by Kloot. Along with five other farmers, Price planted cotton on a plot previously growing cover crops. Like the other farmers, he applied no phosphorus, potassium, or lime.

“It’s generally assumed that withholding those fertilizers is the equivalent to committing agronomic suicide, given the soil of our locale,” says Kloot. Yet previous research had suggested to him that cover crops themselves could feed soil biology, stabilizing nutrients in soil. The farmers’ field trials bore this out.

Kloot’s research inspired Price to grow cover crops across the farm and to eliminate or reduce applications of fertilizers, other than chicken litter, that he once thought were essential to his soils and crop yields.

Today, when Price acquires new land that has been conventionally tilled and has had no cover crops, he transitions it into his management practices by planting cover crops and eliminating lime, potassium, and phosphorus from the get-go. “We’ll see a little bit of a yield drop, but after three years, the land completely changes and yields come back up,” he says.

Nevertheless, he advises newcomers to no-till and cover crops to implement a more gradual transition. “Begin by testing the changes on small field plots, and see for yourself how the new practices work for you,” he says.

7 Tips for Reducing Costs

1. Build healthy soil with cover crops and no-till. 
2. Add livestock where possible to build on soil fertility. 
3. Try reducing fertilizer applications to see the impact on yield.
4. Look at alternative cover crop termination methods, such as roller-crimping. 
5. Break up compaction with cover crops instead of mechanical means. 
6. Use cover crops to reduce weed pressure.
7. Test new practices and application rates on small field plots to measure the impact of reduced costs on profitability. 

Check out more Farm School content HERE.

This educational editorial series is sponsored by: