Annual Farm Plan Leaves Little to Chance
July 1, 2014 From Cotton Grower Magazine – July 2014
It’s been raining in West Tennessee for six consecutive days – up to five inches or more in some areas. Newly-emerged cotton has plenty of moisture (and then some!) to help it move along.
Bob Walker sits in his farm office, listening to the rain, examining soil and terrain maps for one of his fields…and planning where to run irrigation pipe.
Walker is a partner with his brother Bill in Walker Farms in Somerville, TN. It’s a diversified farming operation that includes cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat, plus cattle, hay and a trucking operation. And though it may seem out of place to be working on irrigation plans during a downpour, it’s just a prime example of the degree of planning that the Walkers put into their farming business.
“We always sit down after harvest and start looking at the coming year,” explained Walker. “We literally look at every field, whether it’s in cotton, corn, soybeans or wheat. We’ll adjust our numbers a bit when we get to the end of our process. But where our numbers shake out, that’s generally where they stay.
“A lot of that has to do with the rotations we use,” he said. “We rotate heavily across all of our crops. But that rotation is not set in stone.”
Some of those decisions are based on familiarity with the fields they farm, years of data and continuing farm improvements. For example, the Walkers added a new pivot this year, and that installation involved moving some dirt. Since they are a no-till operation, it was important to get that field back to their standards as quickly as possible.
“We want to get some organic matter on it and get back to a stable soil environment,” said Walker. “We’ll probably put a wheat or corn crop on it – something with high residue. We have to get cover on the ground, and wheat is a great source to stabilize soils and stop erosion in the hills we farm. We work hard to do that.”
Data collection and analysis is extremely important to Walker, especially considering the diversity and geographic scope of the ground they farm. They have made significant investments to help build their data bank – even to the point of hiring a consultant to help analyze the information, provide recommendations and help Walker get more comfortable and confident in making data decisions.
“We started paying attention to our data in the early-to-mid 2000’s,” he recalled. “And, over the last several years, we’ve grown our data bank. We soil sample and run NDVI imagery on fields. Everything we do – fertilization, insecticides and defoliation – is variable rated, and we do it with our own machinery.
“When we hired our consultant, we were exploring data on fertility, and we weren’t happy where we were,” he continued. “He has been working with variable rates and data for a long time and probably has as much experience in the industry as anyone. We told him what we wanted to do, set up the plan and started grid sampling heavily. We’ve grown from there.
“He works with the data a lot, and I do some of it now,” he added. “We’ll look at the recommendations together. It’s very much a give and take.”
Walker tries to leave very little to chance. About 35 percent of their farming operation is pivot irrigated using remote control, and he may classify 20 percent of their acres as “easy” ground. Close attention to water management (hence the irrigation plan) has become an important aspect for many of their fields.
“We have to manage water more cautiously on our soils – getting water on and off of it – and we found drainage to be one of our bigger problems,” said Walker. “When we first had yield monitors, the big thing we saw was lack of drainage and what it was costing us in yield. Consequently, we went out and bought ditchers to get that problem eliminated.
Anytime we’re working with irrigation now, we’re trying to come up with ways to get water on some challenging acres,” he added. “A lot of our tracts are fairly small, and that sometimes makes it difficult. But we work through it.”
The Walkers attack weed control with the same determination.
“We do have weed issues, including resistant pigweed,” he explained. “We use a lot of gin trash to build organic matter on some of our weaker soils, so we know we’re going to have weed pressure. We look at that as we’re planning the year and determining our crop mix and varieties.
“We have to bring our A Game for weeds. We start with residuals, and we never stop using them. We will spot spray, pull or chop – whatever it takes to handle weed pressure. We have farmed some land for 15 to 20 years, and I have a lot of time and money invested in them. I don’t want to see weeds take over.”
Cotton, obviously, is a big part of the farm plan. Walker has been happy with his yields for the past few years and credits the strength of new varieties and traits for those consistent results. This year, he started planting cotton in early May, finishing in 10 to 14 days. Picking will generally take several weeks. Based on that schedule, he knows what he’s looking for when it’s time to choose cotton varieties.
“I like an early to early/mid variety, but medium to medium/late is as far as we can go,” he said. “I need a variety that can handle being on the bottom or the side or the top of a hill. Some of my fields literally go from the bottom of a hill, up and over a terrace to a rough piece of ground, then back to good ground again at the top – all in the same row. That’s our challenge.
“Adaptability has to be very high,” he added. “As we say in the cattle business, we want something that’s an easy keeper – one that’s easy to pick, but can also stand up if we get a fall hurricane out of the Gulf. Being able to manage it effectively is a big deal for me.”
This year, Walker planted multiple varieties, all for very different reasons. It’s all part of the plan.
That doesn’t mean the plan isn’t adaptable. Walker admits they know a lot more about their fields and their crops now than they did several years ago. But that doesn’t mean they know it all.
“Our consultant often uses the words ‘I think, I believe and I know’,” he stated. “It starts with ‘I think this will help, but we don’t know for sure.’ Then, as we look at data or run tests, it becomes ‘I believe it will.’ And we may ‘believe’ for a year or two to see where the best fit is before we get to ‘I know.’
“We may not necessarily know what we thought we knew 25 years ago,” said Walker. “The way it’s always been doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do something today. I do a lot of ‘what ifs’ in our fields based on data. But we also walk the fields and check to see how our plans are working. There’s nothing like putting boots in the field to see what you have.”
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